The authors provide a rationale for distinguishing the primary, enduring negative symptoms of schizophrenia (termed "deficit symptoms") from the more transient negative symptoms secondary to other factors. They argue that the former are more likely to provide a basis for meaningful subtyping of the schizophrenic syndrome, while the latter are more likely to respond to currently available treatments. They describe their experience in using clinical judgment based on longitudinal observations to identify deficit and nondeficit subtypes of schizophrenic patients and propose criteria for defining schizophrenia with the deficit syndrome.