Home > Encyclopedia of Psychology > Emil Kraepelin

1856-1926
German experimental psychiatrist who classified types of mental illness and studied their neurological bases.

Emil Kraepelin was a pioneer in the development of psychiatry as a scientific discipline. He was convinced that all mental illness had an organic cause, and he was one of the first scientists to emphasize brain pathology in mental illness. A renowned clinical and experimental psychiatrist, Kraepelin developed our modern classification system for mental disease. After analyzing thousands of case studies, he introduced and defined the terms "dementia praecox" (schizophrenia), "manic-depressive psychosis," and "paranoia." As a founder of psychopharmacology,...