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Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

theguardian.com

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Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#51

Post by jhayward »

coleifer wrote: post #8

My youngest brother has schizophrenia, which started when he was 19. He just turned 31, and were it not for his family supporting and caring for him, I'm sure he would be homeless or worse. He's one of the most sensitive, gentle people I have ever known. My wife and others who have gotten to know him would agree. Although he's "stable", thanks to an injection every 3 weeks, he's not going to ever get better. In fact…

> Those people are crazy, he said.

It is human nature to want to associate with people who display attributes you wish to see in yourself, and to avoid the converse. The aphorism "you are the average of your 5 closest friends" is based on that idea.

If your brother is self-aware of his illness and doesn't like its effects on him then his response is perfectly understandable to me.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#52

Post by 50656E6973 »

isnetea wrote: post #36

I’ve often wondered if it’s possible to induce psychosis and symptoms of schizophrenia in a subject via environmental conditioning. This seems practical to test these days, given the expanse of information possessed by large tech companies, and their lack of regulation. Perhaps this would be related research for a larger automated behavior control initiative. Does anyone have any pertinent references or info?

Search "Facebook emotional contagion"

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#53

Post by stephenamills »

coleifer wrote: post #8

My youngest brother has schizophrenia, which started when he was 19. He just turned 31, and were it not for his family supporting and caring for him, I'm sure he would be homeless or worse. He's one of the most sensitive, gentle people I have ever known. My wife and others who have gotten to know him would agree. Although he's "stable", thanks to an injection every 3 weeks, he's not going to ever get better. In fact…

Thank you so much for sharing this. My fraternal twin has schizophrenia and was diagnosed at 23. We're 25. I don't have schizophrenia.

But his problem is that he refuses to take medication, so not sure where things will end up in the future with him. It's very up and down. One day like yesterday he's hearing voices and talking to himself, then the next day he's sort of normal.

Hearing that someone else also has a family member that is going through that is helpful.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#54

Post by stephenamills »

codingslave wrote: post #29
asveikau wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hes a real person, not a schizophrenic. Schizophrenics are real people first of all. Congrats to your brother. I have heard it's possible for psychotic episodes to be a one-time thing and not recur. I have also seen people not get better. The whole thing is tough. It can be legit to get off the medications, but some people will need it for life. So how do you tell which situation you or a loved one is in?

Sorry, real person was harsh language, but in the depths of psychosis, it sometimes seems like the old person is no longer there. I was just trying to emphasize that the diagnosis is never final, even after doctors have concluded it to be. In our case we never gave up. I think that the antipsychotic drugs make recovery extremely difficult, which is where alot of patients get trapped. The withdrawl symptoms themselves…

I absolutely absolutely know what you mean. With my twin that has schizophrenia, there are entire months where I'm convinced he's never coming back. That he's permanently gone this time. Then when I give up, there will be just one exclusive random day where he'll be a normal functioning person.

It sounds harsh, but when he's in that illness 'phase', the person seems more like a demon-possessed creature and not even like much of a person. When you hear the things and intonations that the person will say in conversations to themselves in particular.. that's what sounds the least person-like.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#55

Post by harimau777 »

flensortow wrote: post #18
jquery wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly agree, but I think the movie romanticized the end of institutionalization, making us believe we've progressed "beyond" it, when we merely have people screaming on street corners and sleeping in the gutter. Institutionalization should've been reformed, not all but eliminated (I know it still exists, but only for the most extreme cases).

If someone is not a threat to themselves or others, but has strange beliefs and behaviors, should we really take their freedom away just because we don’t think they are taking care of themselves adequately or we don’t like the sight/sound of them? As someone with bipolar disorder (very stable since diagnosis and medication) I’m always a bit dismayed when people call for locking ill people up “for their own good.” (No…

I think that society probably has the right to enforce basic social norms so I think it is reasonable to for society to intervene if someone is being threatening or violating basic norms (e.g. by defecating in the middle of the sidewalk). Both of which are common in the Tenderloin.

The problem that I see is: what options are available other than violating their freedom by forcing them to undergo treatment or locking them up? You can't, for example, fine someone who doesn't have anything. Besides, I think its unlikely that punishment would accomplish anything

So I guess I'm not sure I see a good solution to the problem.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#56

Post by devoply »

jhayward wrote: post #51
coleifer wrote: post #8

My youngest brother has schizophrenia, which started when he was 19. He just turned 31, and were it not for his family supporting and caring for him, I'm sure he would be homeless or worse. He's one of the most sensitive, gentle people I have ever known. My wife and others who have gotten to know him would agree. Although he's "stable", thanks to an injection every 3 weeks, he's not going to ever get better. In fact…

> Those people are crazy, he said. It is human nature to want to associate with people who display attributes you wish to see in yourself, and to avoid the converse. The aphorism "you are the average of your 5 closest friends" is based on that idea. If your brother is self-aware of his illness and doesn't like its effects on him then his response is perfectly understandable to me.

That's not it. The biggest issue is that people who have this disorder can't interpret what other people are saying properly, like someone might be talking about taking a dog on a walk and the person thinks they are talking about how they are a dog. And being around other people who have the disorder makes it even worse because you have people that have delusional ideas and speech inspired by those ideas bouncing off other people that are interpreting that speech in a strange way. Which leads to an amplification of the perception of the disorder.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#57

Post by raybon »

Ah, where do I start. Two of my close relatives have schizophrenia, people whom I’ve known since they were born. They were both diagnosed around 19 and are now 29. In the last ten years we’ve tried many medications, hospitalizations, with little to no avail. I never understood the word curse when I was a kid. I read about it in stories and I had seen people curse each other. Living with schizophrenia is the definition of a curse. Lives wasted in an alternate reality. The lives of the care givers and family impacted terribly.

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#58

Post by jdietrich »

DanBC wrote: post #46
coleifer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of belief is exactly what I was referring to when I said that one of the main features of his illness is that it resists anything that we would consider rehabilitating. Attitudes like this add to the sense of shame: "why don't you get out more and try to be normal like us. Everyone thinks it's a good idea for you." Makes me sick.

Ann doesn't want to join a creative writing group for mentally ill people, she wants to join a creative writing group. Bob doesn't want a work-like scheme for mentally ill people, he wants to keep his current job and wants advice about disclosing mental illness to his employer and asking for reasonable adjustments. These are the things that me and my friends have been campaigning for for all these years- a socially i…

This. It's difficult to establish and maintain a sense of normalcy and social integration when you're only being offered a sort of tacit ghettoisation. Support groups can offer very useful support, but they can also become a trap of mutually-reinforcing pathology. Psychiatric inpatient units are a really difficult place to get better, precisely because you're surrounded by a lot of deeply troubled people who generally would rather be anywhere else.

The Camphill Movement offers an exemplary model of how people with learning difficulties can be integrated into a genuine community. What barriers are preventing us from offering similarly strong integration for people with severe and enduring mental illness? Why are so many people with moderately severe mental health problems being excluded from society for lack of relatively modest accommodations?

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#59

Post by [deleted] »

coleifer wrote: post #8

My youngest brother has schizophrenia, which started when he was 19. He just turned 31, and were it not for his family supporting and caring for him, I'm sure he would be homeless or worse. He's one of the most sensitive, gentle people I have ever known. My wife and others who have gotten to know him would agree. Although he's "stable", thanks to an injection every 3 weeks, he's not going to ever get better. In fact…

[deleted]

Re: Why what we think we know about schizophrenia is wrong

#60

Post by bitwize »

scardine wrote: post #4
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

The diagnostic words that start with "schizo-" are a train wreck. Schizophrenia is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, catatonia, etc. You don't hear much about catatonia these days because it is cleared up by benzodiazepines reliably. Schizoid people have reduced emotional reactions compared to other people but they are in touch with reality. Schizoaffective disorder seems to pick a few sym…

I don't think "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" romanticizes mental illness, for me it is about demonizing institutionalization. It pictures the time when mental illness diagnostic was an easy method to put away anyone annoying or inconvenient (the subject really having a mental illness or not made little difference). It talks about institutional cruelty like torture and lobotomy. But then I didn't read the book, jus…

> I don't think "one flew over the cuckoo's nest" romanticizes mental illness, for me it is about demonizing institutionalization.

Intent is one thing, effect is another. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the book and movie, broke ground upon its release, but one of its secondary effects was to establish the mid-20th-century mental hospital as a gothic setting, akin to the ancient stone manors of old, full of terrible secrets -- not to mention bizarre characters -- that are ripe for literary exploration. Today it's been almost completely tropified, especially since in the current era Great Literature is by definition introspectively psychological. An easy way to establish that your play or movie is "arty" is to set it in such an institution. One of the weirdest instances of this was in The Great Gatsby (2013), which wholly took place in a mental hospital (the plot of the novel being Nick's recollections to his psychiatrist) and implied that Nick admired Gatsby almost to the point of a crush and was so devastated by his death as to need psychiatric attention.

I do recommend you read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the novel. It is written from the perspective of Chief Bromden, and his mental illness helps intensify the themes of subtle control, exercised by tyrannical people and institutions, with specific delusions he has that make him sensitive to that control.

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