Mental health experts in London say there is scientific invalidity to the term “schizophrenia”, this according to an article posted today on CNN.com; “‘Schizophrenia’ ” should be dropped, experts say”.

Professor Marius Romme of the University of Central England in Birmingham is quoted as saying that labeling someone as schizophrenic is a “harmful concept” and that the major symptoms associated with schizophrenia, delusions and hallucinations, could be the results of trauma in life, not necessarily results of an illness. The experts believe that there is fault in labeling a whole range of symptoms as a single disease. Additionally, they site problems with the anti-psychotic drugs which are often prescribed for Schizophrenia including weight gain, sexual dysfunction and increased risks of developing diabetes.

Those proponents of the term “schizophrenia” want to completely it. What are they doing to get the word out? Apparently they have formed a group; The Campaign for the Abolition of the Schizophrenia Label, or CASL, a group of people organized to spread the word of ’schizophrenia’ abolishment.

If we start getting rid of mental health labels, does this compromise our ability to adequatly diagnose individuals suffering from a group of symptoms?

Other psychiatrists agree that schizophrenia is an inadequate term, however they believe that getting rid of the term could lead to problems classifying patients. For example, it could lead to problems deferentiating schizophrenic symptoms from bipolar or obsessive compulsive disorders, whom may receive inappropriate treatments.

Source: Psych Central

Yeah, Schizophrenia's one of those that I never could understand... Just what criterium do they diagnose someone with it? The symptoms are like so many illnesses out there, how can they even diagnose it to anyone? What actually makes Schizophrenia any different from all of the others it's almost identical to? lol, I am so confused

Don't worry Kells, I am hearing you. I view it similar to PTSD, in that PTSD encompasses multiple disorders, hence you in the shit when PTSD has been diagnosed vs. just being diagnosed individually with one or two disorders. I thing Schizophrenia is similar, in that generally you have multiple disorders to get into that range, but then it also encompasses many aspects that PTSD also does... but yer, I don't get it really either, and I think in this case, the label is more detrimental than an outlook for future healing.

It seems the so called experts can't nail it down either. There was a news item the other day that stated a study that found that most people diagnosed with schizophrenia had expeiranced a traumatic event early in life. How that comes out as schisophrenia they could not say. I had a childhood friend who was diagnosed with it ( mild) and lost him to suicide. As a result I read a bit about it. Most people confuse it with MPD and expect most people with it to be violent but they are no more violent than the general public. As i understand it there is a defect in the brain that does'nt let the brain filter out the unconcous thoughts in the brain filtering over to the other parts hense the vioces and visions. Most people with it also have higher than normal IQs. One of the big problems is a lot of suffers do'nt think there is anything wrong and refuse to take their meds witch can be bad if those vioces are telling them to harm themselves.