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Back to the Forum Archives Recently we watched a pretty good movie called "A Beautiful Mind." It was about a really fantastic mathematician who was also schizophrenic. I won't spoil the movie for you if you have not seen it. What makes it interesting for me is twofold. First, Mrs. Gaffer has had to deal with folks who were diagnosed as schizophrenic when she worked as a nurse. Second, I have an inner guide who gives me information. If I told a head doctor about this guide, he might try to convince Mrs. Gaffer to have me committed. I do not believe for a minute that what I experience is a disorder or even unusual for that matter. I have known people and read work by many other people who have similar experiences. Many of us are aware of inner spirit guides of one sort or another. Still, the similarities are quite interesting. I am given to wonder where the line is. What causes a schizophrenic's behavior to get our of his control, assuming it does? So, I'm trying to learn about schizophrenia. In my wife's American Pocked Medical Dictionary ( W. B. Sanders
Company) is a two word definition. See how easily I came right around in a nice verbose circle from schizophrenia to schizophrenia. What I get from this is schizophrenia is schizophrenia. Now Mrs. Gaffer's medical dictionary is rather ancient. She acquired it when she was a young student. Looking up schizophrenia in other, more modern, dictionaries, I find similar definitions. The big difference is that split personality is no longer part of the definition. I believe that part has become a separate study called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). In addition, the description has become more verbose and suggests causes of and treatments for the problem. For example, in Microsoft's Bookshelf I find this: schizophrenia, (skît´se-frê¹nê-e) severe mental disorder characterized by delusions (e.g., a belief that one's thoughts are being broadcast to the world so that others can hear them), hallucinations (e.g., voices that insult, continually comment, or give commands), loosening of associations or incoherence, a flat or inappropriate facial expression, and physical rigidity or agitation. It occurs most commonly, but not always, in late adolescence or early adulthood. Possible causes under study include viral infection during pregnancy, genetic inheritance, abnormal fetal brain development, or a combination of these. In the past a high percentage of patients required long-term hospitalization, but advances in the use of antipsychotic drugs, which apparently act by blocking the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine in the brain, have made the outlook for remission of schizophrenia more hopeful. As I said, a lot more words, but not really in disagreement with the Pocket Dictionary except for MPD. The problem I have with this is it is so inclusive. It is describing some of the personality characteristics of more than half of the people I know. I suspect that schizophrenia is a handy catch all for whatever behavior the therapists cannot identify as something else. This would explain why it used to include MPD. As I indicated, Mrs. Gaffer has had to deal with this. Her problem was that she did not diagnose the condition. She just had to deal with people who were diagnosed as schizophrenic. In other words, someone else told her that they were schizophrenic, else she would not have know. She only knew their behavior was weird. What she described to me is a person who's behavior changes suddenly and dramatically. They are still the same person, but with different behavior. We sometimes describe it as off the wall. For example, you are having a reasonable conversation with this person when, all of a sudden, the person starts speaking of something completely unrelated as though it were going on right now. They completely switch modes of being. It's as though their mind is not connected to the present body and situation, but is elsewhere. I wonder, could it be possible that these people behave the way they do because someone told them that they were schizophrenic and then described to them the behavior they were supposed to exhibit? Were they just trying to be something because it was better than not knowing what they were? I also wonder if this behavior is just a different symptom of MPD. I'm not sure yet. What Mrs. Gaffer described to me demonstrates all of the symptoms of MPD except the change of identity. Is it really different though? The schizophrenic seems to identify with a time and space that they are not in. Then they return to the real time and space. A MPD victim identifies with a personality and a set of circumstances which are unrelated to their previous situation. Then they return to the first identity and circumstances. Is the difference really one of semantics? Is the schizophrenic switching away to escape from something painful? Are they trying to find a safe way to be? Or, are they like the MPD person? Have they invested so much psychic energy into an alternate personality that it just takes over, but keeps the same external identity? One thing I am sure of is MPD is a matter of degree. We all have it. Now, a leap of faith. When I learn as much as I can about this schizophrenia, I think I will discover that it's about having hallucinations and not much else. I think I will also conclude that it's a matter of degree. I believe everyone has hallucinations or visions including me. Even the head doctors who have defined schizophrenia must have occasional visions. If they do not, they are probably obsessive compulsive in order to keep them away. So, I can ask some pointed questions. When is a hallucination schizophrenia? When is it just a bit of imagination? When is it a divine vision? Was Jesus a divine being or simply a schizophrenic? What about me and my spirit-guide soul-self? When, as a child, I saw God, was I being schizophrenic? Is an ascetic who sees a vison of Jesus just a schizophrenic or is that a divine revelation? Is a schizophrenic really just a person who has hallucinations or are there other symptoms? How do you tell schizophrenia from other mental disorders? How do we define hallucination? Do we compare what I see with what you see and call one a hallucination if they differ? Which one? Yours or mine? What about dreams? If I have a dream while I am awake, is it a dream or am I schizophrenic? My sleeping dreams are, to some degree, irrational and surrealistic. Is that schizophrenic? If not, why not? Where is the boundary between the, so called, real world and the world of surrealism, hallucination, and schizophrenia? Who defines that boundary? Where is their writ? Is their world more real that Van Gogh's? Why? Is there really a boundary? What is real? Are most saints schizophrenic? What about a person who ingests psychedelics? I feel compelled to apologize for having more questions than answers. I do have one thing to offer. My tentative conclusion is, if hallucination is a way to identify schizophrenia, we may all be schizophrenic to some degree. That's okay, but it is not the really scary part. The scary part is schizophrenia is defined and diagnosed by head doctor practitioners. These are not the great men like Maslow, Jung, Rogers, and Perls. These are more like engineers, technicians who have studied a field and memorized a set of rules and procedures. They determine a patient's diagnosis on the basis of interviews with the patient. Then they prescribe a treatment. The problem is, unlike ordinary medical treatment, in this the patient is likely to lose his decision making power somewhere in the process. The more extreme the diagnosis, the more likely becomes this usurpation. The patient becomes a ward, as it were, of his family and the doctor. That very idea terrifies me. I have known a couple of people who were diagnosed and treated by head doctors. One committed suicide. The other is so heavily sedated that he is very nearly autistic. In the old days, these guys used shock treatment to control people. Now they pretend to be more enlightened. I am not at all convinced that drug therapy is more humane than shock treatment. I have made one very serious request of Mrs. Gaffer. If my behavior ever becomes such that I seem to be dangerous to others, please have the kindness to kill me. Please, do not ever put me in the hands of those people. Kill me if you must, but spare me that terror. As I said before, beware the therapist. Gaffer:
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