Through a critical analysis of the peer-reviewed scholarly literature and reliance on primary and secondary historical sources, the current chapter will critically investigate three key aspects of the schizophrenia syndrome as they relate to outcome: 1. the emergence and metamorphosis of the diagnostic category over time beginning with Kraepelin’s and Bleuler’s seminal definitions at the turn of the twentieth century to DSM-5 formulations; 2. an analysis of large-scale, systematic, group studies of outcome beginning with the Iowa 500 study in the 1970s (Tsuang et al., 1979), through contemporary work, and how these findings have influenced thinking about patterns of recovery and disability in the disorder over recent history; and 3. the emergence and metamorphosis of psychosocial treatments for the disorder beginning in the 1890s through current practices. The chapter will seek to illuminate how changes in the ascendancy of conceptual models of schizophrenia in different historical epochs have influenced diagnostic formulations, treatment approaches, and understanding of outcome in the disorder.

In twenty-first-century psychology and self-help literature, the “inner child” refers to an original or true self that serves as a repository of wisdom for its adult counterpart. This chapter traces the modern inner child back to Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy and her protégée Emma Curtis Hopkins, the leading New Thought teacher of the 1880s and 1890s. Hopkins described an idealized “Man Child” within each adult woman who could lead her to spiritual serenity and worldly success. Frances Hodgson Burnett fictionalized different versions of this figure in her short story Sara Crewe (1888) and her blockbuster novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), whose eponymous child hero helps his mother achieve undreamed-of wealth and status. Little Lord Fauntleroy also serves as his mother’s proxy outside of the domestic sphere, allowing her to reach personal goals without appearing inappropriately ambitious. The novel’s enormous popularity may have stemmed from this symbiotic relationship between mother and son. Then as now, the inner child helped women reconcile social pressures to be selfless and giving with career pursuits and self-indulgent behavior. The persistence of the inner child suggests that contemporary feminism still has work to do in enabling women to embrace opportunities without guilt.