Talk:schizophrenia

Divergent but valid colloquial definition

The current entry cites, somewhat incompletely, a clinical definition of schizophrenia. There exists a parallel, colloquial understanding of the term which cannot simply be ignored and dismissed as 'incorrect' because, quite apart from the dictionary's role of recording current usage, it has clinical validity, describing a condition of internal conflict/paradox which may be seen as having serious consequences, either for the individual in question, or those under his or her influence. Thus a lover might describe his or her partner as 'schizophrenic' when the latter's inconstancy becomes too much to bear, or a disgruntled employee may react similarly to a pattern of conflicting reports or instructions. This is not necessarily equivalent to an informal diagnosis of 'dissociative identity disorder'[1]: lay people do not have the role nor the status of diagnosticians. They are simply using the clinical term in the way which makes the most sense from their perspective, to describe a real, practical, psychological problem encountered at work or in personal relationships. It is not a clinical term, used in this way, for they are not clinicians, much as they might claim to have identified a clinical problem which diagnosticians fail to address. There thus seems to be an area here of 'para-clinical para-diagnosis.' The mentality underlying the individual thus labelled could be explained in terms of a number of psychological possibilities, ranging from bad mental habits and indecision, thru to inconstancy and outright deceit - or, on the other hand, the description could of course be unjust and undeserved - but it doesn't alter the basic validity of the term as used in this somewhat open-ended (from a clinician's perspective), inconclusive fashion. --Londheart 00:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

See [2], [3] and [4]. --Londheart 22:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)