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In Reply to: Zerby schizophrenia posted by Sniff on November 28, 2002 at 14:57:59:
What you are trying to say about Maria and the F. as a whole is completely understandable to me. We are on the same page. She has switched back and forth, and there is much double-talk and clear contradictions. What I would like to bring to attention to is the use of label "schizophrenia."
If Schizophrenia is considered a medical condition, a disability, one which individuals have been plagued by either due to mental, chemical or biological factors, it might not be a considerate to use that as a term which carries stigma and condemnation. It wouldn't be PC to use it as in, "You can't make up your mind, you are schizophrenic", as a person truly suffering from such a disease would not be able to help him/herself.
Strangely, if you said there was a schism in Maria's thinking, you'd be PC, haha! But I would stay away from saying "Maria is a Schizo" if you consider what I am writing below. Actually I don't care much for being PC, and I am not asking you to be, I just thought this subject was interesting since I have lived with people who were diagnosed as schizophrenics.
There are many myths and misconceptions about schizophrenia. Critics say this is because Schizophrenia has not been adequately medically defined, and descriptions are vague or inconsistent. There is a lot of truth to this. The label schizophrenia, like the labels "pornography" or "mental illness", indicates disapproval of that to which the label is applied and nothing more.
This may have roots in earlier treatment models, which viewed patients as hopeless cases who needed to be stabilized with hospitalization, and then maintained with medications. The heavy, tranquilizing effects of those drugs made management of patients easier, although they only masked the disease and caused serious side effects, including the familiar facial disfiguration known widely in the 1960s and '70s as "the Thorazine look."
The American Psychiatric Association's (APA's) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Second Edition), also known as DSM-II, published in 1968, defined schizophrenia as "characteristic disturbances of thinking, mood, or behavior" (p. 33). A difficulty with such a definition is it is so broad just about anything people dislike or consider abnormal, i.e., any so-called mental illness, can fit within it.
Mental Disorders for many years specifically excluded organically caused conditions from the definition of schizophrenia. Not until the publication of DSM-IV in 1994 was the exclusion for biologically caused conditions removed from the definition of schizophrenia - the disease is now more widely understood to have organic causes.
Schizophrenia includes several widely divergent personality types:
hebephrenic schizophrenics,
paranoid schizophrenics,
catatonic schizophrenics,
simple schizophrenics(!)
Manic-depressives or sufferers of "bipolar mood disorder", may also be called schizophrenic: "Many cases that are diagnosed as schizophrenia in the United States would be diagnosed as manic-depressive illness in England or Western Europe" (Houghton Mifflin, 1980, p. 165.)
Christians may note that the trouble with definitions of schizophrenia is that Jesus and the prophets of the bible could be diagnosed as hallucinating paranoid schizophrenics. And the demon-possessed characters of Jesus' time, could be sufferers of "multiple personality disorder."
A proper definition of the disease is elusive, and is not my area of expertise nor the focus or scope of this post. What I know of the disease, is what it generally is NOT, after chats with friends who are medical professionals and some lay research.
What seems to be one of the biggest misconceptions of the disease is the association with split-personality disorder. A person suffering from multiple personalities is not necessarily suffering from schizophrenia.
In her book Schiz-o-phre-nia: Straight Talk for Family and Friends, published in 1985, Maryellen Walsh says "Schizophrenia is one of the most misunderstood diseases on the planet. Most people think that it means having a split personality. Most people are wrong. Schizophrenia is not a splitting of the personality into multiple parts" (Warner Books, p. 41).
Schizophrenia continues to be the most debilitating of the psychotic disorders with less than one third returning to a 'normal' level of functioning. I believe people genuinely suffering from it need consideration, respect and treatment. I'd recommend the film "A Beautiful Mind" if you haven't seen it.
