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Schizophrenia: of sanity and split minds
 One of the most disabling mental disorders has the unfortunate circumstance of being one of the least understood. Schizophrenia is a mental illness defined by its symptoms, as genetic or environmental causes have not yet been conclusively found. For this reason, there is a maddening debate over a literally maddening disease: what causes schizophrenia?
An average run of the mill introduction to schizophrenia. Here
The harmful concept of Schizophrenia
A cause related alternative for the harmful concept of schizophrenia.
Prof. Dr. Marius Romme.
 Annual Conference of M.H.N.A., Bournemouth 9 Nov. 2005
The main reason why the concept of schizophrenia is harmful is because the concept itself makes it impossible to solve the patient’s problems which lies at the root of becoming ill.
In order to explain this essential problem and argue a more promising, cause related alternative, I will discuss the following issues:
- The scientific validity of the concept is Zero and is does not refer to a brain disease.
- The diagnostic process neglects the reasons for the existing symptoms.
- The relationships between the core symptoms and experiences in life are neglected.
- The inter relationships between the core symptoms are neglected.
- The core symptoms do not represent expressions of psychopathology.
- Learning to cope with the symptoms and with the problems at hart are neglected.
- People who recover from the illness do that outside of psychiatry.
Read whole article here
Recovering from voices by changing your relationship with them
Last updated 29/06/2007
 Marius Romme in this new article, considers five questions about the importance of changing your relationship with the voices. Based on interviews with 50 voice hearers who have recovered from the distress caused by their voices.
by Professor Marius Romme
It's all done with smoke and mirrors. Or, how to create the illusion of a schizophrenic brain disease
Mary Boyle, University of East London
Reprinted from Clinical Psychology Issue 12. April 2002 pp 9-16
 One of the more intriguing aspects of the "schizophrenia" literature is the discrepancy between the strength of the belief that "schizophrenia is a brain disease" and the availability of direct supporting evidence; even those who hold the belief admit that there is no direct evidence for it (e.g. Chua and McKenna, 1995; McGrath and Emerson, 1999; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). This raises the question of why the belief seems so reasonable and credible. Or, to put it another way, how is the presentation of "schizophrenia as a brain disease" managed in such a way that the absence of direct evidence will not be noticed or not seem important?
Read the whole article here
An octopus in my stomach
Sunday, October 21, 2007
 Every Wednesday, our senior who got an MRCPsych, take us for a session where we discuss a case from a book of PMP (Patient Management Problems), which is written as a preparation for the MRCPsych exam cases....and it is usually very helpful, every Thursday we take our ward patient and discuss their management...
Last Wednesday it was a really important case were we all fail (i mean all resident doctor) fail to do the proper management and it was like this, in a summary: a man with a known history of schizophrenia, disorganized type, came to the emergency unit of the general hospital were you work (you means the psychiatrist), saying that there is an angry octopus inside his stomach hitting the walls of the stomach with his 8 legs causing severe pain, and the patient was shouting and agitated...
Written by a foreign medical student but he has a message... Read it here
CASL
Support the Campaign
for Abolition of the Schizophrenia Label
 The CASL campaign is driven by two central factors:
1) The concept of schizophrenia is unscientific and has outlived any usefulness it may once have claimed.
2) The label schizophrenia is extremely damaging to those to whom it is applied.
Reliability
For a diagnosis to have any clinical clinical utility it must be reliable. That is to say there must be consistency in how individuals are diagnosed. There is no evidence that this has ever been the case with schizophrenia. Read (2004), has illustrated how it is possible for 15 individuals with nothing in common to be gathered together in one room and ALL be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Test- retest analysis is as low as 37% and in 1970 when 194 British and 134 American psychiatrists were asked to provide a diagnosis on the basis of a case description, 69% of the Americans diagnosed schizophrenia whilst only 2% of the British did so. There is no definitive evidence to suggest that the reliability of the diagnosis has improved since that date.
An argument from those who are affected by the label. Read campaign here
Will Ending The Use Of The Label Schizophrenia Help Reduce Prejudice?
Posted on November 4, 2007
by hymes
 Or will new labels make no difference at all? Manic depression was changed to bipolar disorder many years ago and still in most articles for the public it is called “bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depression” or some such. And there is no apparent reduction in prejudice towards people with this label. Multiple Personality Disorder was changed to Dissociative Identity Disorder with the only result seeming to be that most journalist and the general public don’t know what Dissociative Identity Disorder means and still use Multiple Personality Disorder. Personally, I don’t think there will ever be anything better than Sylvia Caras’s people who experience mood swings, fears, voices and visions which to me has always made us part of the human condition, not a label.
And will removing labels help? Read whole article here
A timeline for neuroleptics
 Excerpted from:
"The case against antipsychotic drugs: a 50-year record of doing more harm than good," by Robert Whitaker, author of Mad In America: Bad Medicine, Bad Science and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill.
Published in the journal Medical Hypotheses (2004)
Neuroleptics from the other side! see timeline here
HARSH TREATMENT
A Mother's Regrets
By NICHOLAS ZAMISKA
November 2, 2007;
 In China, Brain Surgery
Is Pushed on the Mentally Ill
Irreversible Procedures
Rarely Done Elsewhere;
NANJING, China -- Mi Zhantao, a poor 25-year-old living with his parents outside this provincial capital in eastern China, was battling depression and had trouble socializing. Doctors said he had schizophrenia. They recommended brain surgery.
Read this horrifying story of one mans fate... unfortunately he is not alone. Here
Retraumatizing the victim
Posted on October 11th, 2007.
By Ann Jennings, Ph.D.
 This article is an excerpt from “On Being Invisible in the Mental Health System,” which appeared in the Journal of Mental Health Administration, Fall 1994.
Stigma can take many forms. When diagnosis and treatment themselves are stigmatizing, the consequences are devastating. In the case of Ann Jennings’ daughter, the outcome was tragic.
My daughter Anna was a victim of early childhood sexual trauma. She was never able to find treatment in the mental health system. From the age of 13 to her recent death at the age of 32, she was viewed and treated by that system as “severely and chronically mentally ill.” A review of 17 years of mental health records reveals her described in terms of diagnoses, medications, “symptoms,” behaviors, and treatment approaches. She was consistently termed “non-compliant” or “treatment resistant.” Although it was initially recorded, her childhood history was dropped from her later records. Her own insights into her condition were not noted.
Read this sad but true story here
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