Should we rename schizophrenia?

Here is a blog from the Old Zeeland. Zeeland is, of course, part of the Netherlands! But what’s in a name? Or does it not make much difference?

What is it with the name schizophrenia? We associate it with much unpleasantness, even monstrosity. Or is that just because of the assumptions of the man in the street? Maybe the harsh ringtone it gives out has a tendency to spread. Are there people around us who, on one level or another, tend to judge a person with schizophrenia as unreliable, something of a monster, dreadful to contemplate, or does it go even deeper?

Anoiksis, the Dutch society of people with schizophrenia, set itself to find a new term for it, and so we held a competition. We received 320 entries, which is quite a number. So we think maybe quite a lot of people here are not satisfied with the name schizophrenia.

Dysfunctional Perception Syndrome

The term that won the contest was: Dysfunctional Perception Syndrome (DPS). It describes the essence of the condition and is a medical term that is probably more objective and less discriminating than the old term; it points to a dysfunction in the working of the brain and suggests the real cause of the condition is something in the brain.

We could write a whole chapter of a book about the disadvantages of the proposed term DPS. You could say it would be better to wear the old label with dignity and work to create a better understanding of it. ‘Dysfunctional’ links painfully to aberrant behaviour, the disregard of social conventions or, for instance, the lack of willingness to function in society or even to work!

Salience Syndrome

Another proposal for a new name is salience syndrome, salience referring to a detail that has extra importance, like an ordinary everyday event that gets extraordinary significance during a psychosis. To call it a syndrome is to suggest that science has not found the real medical cause yet.

The medical term should not only be accurate but precisely match the neurobiological fault in the brain. That has not yet been discovered, and some researchers question whether it ever could be found; they argue that schizophrenia has a psychological origin, like a hang-up in the development of the personality due to an earlier life experience.

In any case wouldn’t the term DPS also get down-graded and acquire negative associations, so that whatever re-naming you do would be ineffective?

Thanks to Like Minds, Like Mine

Like minds, like mine:  thank you very much for tackling prejudice with such a large campaign as yours. When we heard about it we thought we must recognise it and support it. It has many meanings.

To say, like my mind, is to make a friendly and gentle appeal to the public to try to see this mind as it is and to resist the common opinions and prejudices that lead to active dislike and distancing.

Schizophrenia sounds monstrous

Actually, to be honest, our behaviour in a psychosis can indeed be monstrous. I have myself had angry episodes when I felt like hitting my mother or shouting at my father or damaging the door of a car just parked in the street; this was due to being worn out and aggravated by delusional thoughts.

Maybe such behaviour is the source of the myths that go round among the public. Yet they get badly exaggerated and that causes unnecessary and useless hurt to us, and is often due to a member of the public treating us with disrespect and in a degrading manner.

What about a soap?

It would be a good idea to balance the picture people have of us by writing a mentally ill person into the script of a TV soap like Neighbours. Social reality issues are popular with viewers. They can learn a lot from enacted situations about the real circumstances in which people live.

TV could be, and is sometimes, used to portray a more nuanced picture of people with a mental illness. A schizophrenic could be written in who besides less attractive behaviour does something clever or humorous or a work of outstanding value to humanity. The popularity of soaps makes me think that people in general are keen to get to know about how things really are.

Jan Willem Slabbekoorn, Guest Blogger, The Netherlands