Thursday, March 30, 2006

What is Schizophrenia?

That is the question.

To live with a thing, it's best to understand it. Being in the brain - an organ that medical science is only beginning to understand - schizophrenia (or SZ for short) is an illness that is badly understood and even more badly diagnosed and treated. Not even to mention management and family involvement.

But what do we know?

Schizophrenia has many definitions according to the different "great minds" attempting to study the condition.

Psychiatrists and the medical professional in general feel that it is a physical condition, to be managed purely by physical means. This is in the process of change, admittedly. Still, the general view is that medication is the best treatment for the problem. Usually the family's help is solicited to help patients stay on their meds.

Other, more radical thinkers have blamed everything from society to the occult for the illness. Society is ill, one group would claim. Another group might offer spells and potions for the psychotic to play with. Just make them happy, and everything else will be okay, they say. All this in the face of the generally psychotic claim: "I'm not sick, everyone else is!"

So who is right?
Well, nobody and everybody. Who knows? There are more questions than answers. It is in examining the questions that we best understand the existing answers and come up with our own.

The next few weeks will be devoted to the specific and often strange explanations offered for the origins and nature of SZ.

That's it for now.
Cathi

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