Table 2.

Two definitions of FRS

Thought block, deprivation, insertion and diffusion (broadcasting), Schneider1(p100,101)	Thoughts being spoken aloud, Schneider1(p96,97)
“Interruption of thought is illustrated by a schizophrenic woman, who said: ‘When I want to hang on to my thoughts, they break off’	Certain modes of hearing voices are of a special importance in schizophrenia: hearing one own thoughts aloud (…). [Thus] a schizophrenic woman said: ‘I hear my own thoughts. I can hear them when everything was quiet’. A schizophrenic man said: ‘When I try to think, my head gets full of noise; it's like if my brain were in an uproar with my thoughts’.
A schizophrenic man stated that his thoughts were ‘taken from me years ago by a parish council’
On the same level as thought withdrawal, we find other kinds of influences at work on the thoughts. Thoughts are ascribed to other people who intrude their thoughts upon the patient. Equally important are the thoughts that are no longer private but shared by others, the whole town or the whole world.”
“The diffusion of thoughts is illustrated by a schizophrenic shopkeeper who said: ‘People see what I am thinking; you could not prove it, but I just know it is so (…)’ ‘If I think of anything, at once those opposite me know it and it is embarrassing’.”
The Present State Examination, Cooper et al54(p208)	The Present State Examination, Cooper et al54(p208)
“Thoughts are stopping unexpectedly so that there are none left	Designated as “thought broadcast”: “Hears one's thoughts “spoken” but not broadcast. Subject must really hear them aloud in his head. In more severe cases, the thoughts are transferred or broadcast so others can share them” (see Schneider's “diffusion” in the opposite column). “Thought echo is rated when thoughts are repeated or echoed or commented by other thoughts” (no hallucinations).
Are thoughts put into your head which you know are not your own?” (if the thoughts are considered as nonalien, but eg, as ‘subconscious’, the score should be only 1).
“Thoughts taken out of the head as though some external person or force were removing them.”
No definition of thought broadcast as thought diffusion; instead included a delusion of “thoughts being read.”

Note: “Psychopathological concepts are evolved from observation and must always be measured and tested against observed facts. It is reasonable to expect that they should account in essentials for the clinical data which are their point of departure, and which give them their purpose and meaning (…). No one, however, will expect theoretical classifications to settle every individual case unerringly (…). The psychiatrist who for this reason thinks theoretical efforts are useless is abandoning all hope of a scientific psychopathology.” Schneider.^1(p38–39)