Daniel Paul Schreber

Daniel Paul Schreber was a German judge who was famous for his personal account of his own experience with schizophrenia. Schreber experienced three distinct periods of acute mental illness. The first of these, in 1884-1885 was what was then diagnosed as dementia praecox. He described his second mental illness, from 1893 to 1902, making also a brief reference to the first disorder from 1884 to 1885, in his book Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. The Memoirs became an influential book in the history of psychiatry and psychoanalysis because of its interpretation by Sigmund Freud. There is no personal account of his third disorder, in 1907–1911, but some details about it can be found in the Hospital Chart. During his second illness he was treated by Prof. Paul Flechsig, Dr. Pierson (Lindenhof), and Dr. Guido Weber.