SHOULD WE ABOLISH ‘SCHIZOPHRENIA’?

I’m not sure about this stigma thing. People that are stupid enough to believe what they read in the, primarily, tabloids should probably be abolished.

If the term Schizophrenia was abolished and replaced with ‘Challenged Reality and Perception Syndome’ this is what would happen.

1. The word schizophrenia would still be used by almost everyone.

2. It would eventually just become an insulting term without the defence of also being a halfway useful bit of medical terminaology.

3. The new term if it gained popular acceptance would become a brand new insult.

4. The tabloids would not give a monkeys and still talk about Psycho Schizo Axe Killers Stealing Our Jobs!

I think your idea about educating children is the way to go. Most families have someone near to them who suffers from mental health issues, schizophrenia is rare but not that rare, encouraging people to learn about it, be open about it and share experiences from an early age can only do good.

I have heard children quite happily discussing mental health issues with one abother without any stigma or negativity. Young children mind you, the age before they turn into Hoodie Wearing Gun Wielding Job Avoiding Hooligans !!!

My husband is Schizophrenic.When I tell people this I usually follow up with the statement “…but he’s not a mad axe murderer !! ” Because people just do not understand Although we do have the media to thank for the way the general public view Schizophrenia.I think some of the nurses & hca’s I have worked with have reacted the worst when I’ve told them.But more than anything else I get really pee’d off by their attitude towards some of the patients when the patient has a history of Psychosis on top of the problem they are being treated for on the ward (Neurosurgical) .You’d think there would be a bit more understanding.
If there was another way of naming it then fine.On the upside you could look at the example of Manic Depression being relabelled as Bipolar Disorder.The downside with that label is that it appears a very fashionable label amongst some celebs.Could you imagine many celebs owning up to a Schizophrenia label even with relabelling ? If it meant that those not in the know regarding this illness or any other form of mental illness received a bit more education then great.
At one point World Mental Health Day was being touted as an educational event in schools (well around here anyway).I don’t know how the professional son here view this event.I suspect with quite a bit of indifference , although I guess I could be wrong.

Hey Flowergirl, hope you are well.

As usual I don’t need any excuse for a bit of political ranting but has anyone else noticed this government’s current preoccupation with oaths of citizenship, how often the bins are emptied, the drink drive limit and other matters of minor importance. That’s because they have no clue as to what to do about major issues such as uncontrolled immigration, an ineffective criminal justice system, the energy crisis, a failing education system, knife crime and the like. Tinker around at the edges, make yourself look busy and hope people are fooled into believing you know what you`re doing.

It’s the same in mental health. It`s now 103 years since the term schizophrenia emerged. Four conditions were recognised and lumped together not because of any aetiological or symptomatic similarity but because in each case the prognosis was poor . I suppose we have made some progress in the treatment of schizophrenia but, if we’re honest, any backslapping or a round of drinks would be wholly unjustified.

Now we’re more than happy to discuss whether schizophrenia should be renamed dopamine dysregulation disorder until the cows come home, via Ikea. And we`re equally happy to medicalise everything from anger to grief just so we can persuade ourselves that we`re doing something worthwhile. But we’re failing in our core duties and no amount of distraction can change that.

No point moaning without offering any solutions. Big Pharma have been making good money out of haloperidol for 50 years. The newer anti-psychotics aren`t pulling up trees. Until we nurses, as patients advocates, start stamping our feet then nothing will change.

Flowergirl, I agree, mental illness awareness should be an integral part of education. It astounds me that there is so little taught about it given it’s prevalence in society. I don’t think rebranding any illness is ultimately going to help challenge the underlying stigma, in fact it could do the contrary - it emphasises the fact that these illnesses are something unpalatable that shouldn’t be mentioned. It’s only through people being brave enough to admit to their schizophrenia etc that attitudes will ever be changed.

Personally I agree with Dazedandconfused, and also with Flowergirl’s point about the need for better education about mental health and disabilities. In a more immediate context the need to provide psychoeducation of people and their families requires an accurate diagnosis, and if we think the client has schizophrenia, we should say schizophrenia and not beat around the bush with euphemisms.

That said, I also agree with OSB that at present the term “schizophrenia” covers a pretty wide variety of symptoms and presentations and you get people with the same diagnosis who don’t seem to have much in common in their presentation. Maybe in 20 years there’ll be 50 different sub-types of schizophrenia instead of just seven.

I agree with everyone else - the problem is lack of education. People believe the stupid things that they read in the the paper or see on the tv because they don’t know any different.

We bloggers can try to educate people but the problem is that our blogs are only read by those who have an interest in the subject in the first place. Education has to start in school, and then we have to hope that the children will educate their parents. While lack of education remains so will stigma, whatever the illness is called.

When a given term for a phenomenon is replaced with another term because the original term had unpleasant associations attached to it, the new term has a lifespan of about 10 years before it acquires the negative connotations of the term it replaced. Just think back to the “patient/client/service user” debate, or look at the history of terminology used to describe different ethnic groups. So replacing the term “schizophrenia” on grounds of PC sensibilities only has limited value, but replacing it on the grounds that it is technically and clinically limited is a different story. The Japanese are now calling it something else, reality orientation disorder or some such gobbledybollox, and I’d bet my hide that if the scientific community ever does agree on a replacement term then it will not be succinct, or even properly descriptive. I’d welcome a few suggestions, though, and would award special prizes for wit, irony and tongue-in-cheekedness. And brevity. Perhaps the good Nurse Z could run a competition????????

PS I’ve done some work in schools around mental health education - and not just trotting out the party line, a lot of it was delivered by people who’d experienced problems themselves, and could pass a “recovery” message on to the yooff.

“Gay” used to be a term with enormous stigma. In some places it still is but, largely, over just 10 years or so it’s swapped from being a term used for folk who are different (like the mentally ill), not understood (like the mentally ill) and enjoying behaviours that much of society see as incomprehensible to themselves (like the mentally ill) to being accepted and quite trendy.

Individuals still suffer adversity, denigration and prejudice (like the mentally ill). But as a group, “gay” has shifted from something often abhorrent to something often trendy.

I’d hope schizophrenia could go thorugh a similar shift, with the embracing (ot at least acceptance) of difference. Maybe schizophrenic folk could be seen both as individuals who just happen to have scizophrenia. But to embrace schizophrenia as a term, maybe it’s necessary for to be seen as interesting folk who’ve had interesting experiences who can be a riot to spend time with. 10 years on, could schizophrenia be seen as differently?

When a given term for a phenomenon is replaced with another term because the original term had unpleasant associations attached to it, the new term has a lifespan of about 10 years before it acquires the negative connotations of the term it replaced.

Indeed. I recall the Spastics Society changing its name to Scope. The response of the kids in the playground was to stop calling each other “spastics” and start calling each other “scopes” instead.

On an only-vaguely related note, I was told a while back that the British Army stationed in the Falkland Islands started referring to the Falklanders as “Bennies” after Benny from Crossroads (i.e. implying that they’re a bunch of rustic, slightly dense types wearing woolly hats). This eventually drew complaints from the locals after satellite TV arrived in the Falklands, and they all got to find out who Benny was. An order went out from on high that the troops were not to refer to the locals as Bennies.

The squaddies then started calling the Falklanders “Stills”. As in, “They’re Still Bennies”.