# Is Schizophrenia A Spiritual Illness Or A Chemical In balance??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 23, 2006, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538 "2006-10-23T07:21:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mountain\_Fire77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Mountain\_Fire77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mountain_Fire77)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/1 "2006-10-23T07:21:06Z")
This is a long read but definitely worth it in my opinion. Deals with the psychosis from a spiritual scientific point of view with some intelligent thinking which makes sense. If your up for a interesting and thought provoking read, then this is definitely for you > [@](#): > > In my mind’s eye, I was not thinking of Avalon as a silly game using ordinary imagination or wishful thinking. I was thinking in terms of a commonly shared vision or dreamscape in which everyone literally sees the same imagery: the same clouds, the same trees, and one another just like we do in this dimension. I further thought it could be interacted on accordingly, in essence being able to step into one another’s minds in the process. Whether this mindscape is what Avalon was or not, I don’t know, but it is what I took it to mean at the time. The remainder of this copyrighted article may be found at [The Technical Addendum, Vol. II—Spiritual/Dimensional Reality](http://www.mrrena.com/bio/add2.shtml) Copyright © 1998 Eric Knickerbocker. All rights reserved. ---
**Author:** ![Mountain\_Fire77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Mountain\_Fire77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mountain_Fire77)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/2 "2006-10-23T07:21:56Z")
(Continuation of previous copyrighted article.) ---
**Author:** ![Mountain\_Fire77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Mountain\_Fire77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mountain_Fire77)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/3 "2006-10-23T07:22:38Z")
(Continuation of previous copyrighted article.) ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/4 "2006-10-23T08:03:41Z")
What is up with all these Christian nutjobs recently? (No offense to the non-nutjob Christians). I’m beginning to feel like there’s a forum somewhere that’s targetting us as their people to save for the month… Anyway, this had the look of a reposted spiel, so I googled a bit of it and yep, **Mountain\_Fire77** posted the same thing on sciforums (a[link](http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:jaO0BFAMLZ0J:www.sciforums.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D52915%26page%3D62+There+is+a+common+theory+that+gives+a+greater+understanding+to+dimensional+reality,+which+incidentally,+if+I+understand+correctly,+is+also+involved+in+the+concept6+of+Einstein%E2%80%99s+general+theory+of+relativity.+In+geometry,+we+speak+of+imaginary+figures+to+explain+mathematical+concepts.+The+theory+goes+that+if+you+take+a+line+(the+imaginary+figure+that+symbolizes+one+dimension,+theoretically+extending+into+infinity+in+either+direction),+and+square+it,+you+arrive+at+the+second+geometric+dimension:+the+plane.+The+plane+contains+the+line,+but+goes+beyond+it.+Its+surface+contains,+if+you+will,+a+myriad+of+lines,+theoretically+extending+into+infinity+on+all+points+of+its+flat+surface.+When+you+square+the+plane,+you+arrive+at+the+cube,+which+contains+both+the+line+and+the+plane+but+goes+beyond+that,+symbolizing+three-dimensional+space,+or+height,+depth,+and+width.&hl=en&lr=&strip=1) to the text-only google cache, since I can’t get at the page itself for some reason.) There’s also the masterpiece “A Great Video Which Is Throws The Theory Of Evolution Out Of The Window” ([cache linky](http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:TDnQuqmTxWAJ:www.sciforums.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D58638+Mountain_Fire77&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2)) which is pretty self-explanatory. Mr. **Mountain\_Fire77** has also posted a thread entitled “A Great Video Your Science Teacher Didn’t Want You To See…” on [abovetopsecret.com](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread229309/pg1), which appears to be a conspiracy theorist site. Amusingly, even the people there think he’s a moron. And he’s also posted [this very thread](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread230859/pg1) there, too. Oh, but the important thing is that the entire spiel is, as pointed out by someone on that last forum, entirely ripped off from [this site](http://www.mrrena.com/bio/add2.shtml), and as noted it’s a copywrited work. Mods? ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/5 "2006-10-23T08:09:38Z")
[QUOTE=Mountain\_Fire77] There is a book that explains it all. It is sitting under billions of people’s noses, and they are totally unaware that it contains the answers. Nearly everyone has access to it. It is the number one best seller of all time, but oddly enough it is also the least read book of all time. But if you do not believe it (as some of you undoubtedly do not) you are forced to counter such phenomenon with other explanations. [/QUOTE] _Playboy_? I always knew I should have read the articles. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/6 "2006-10-23T08:48:05Z")
Wouldn’t a Spiritual Illness and a Chemical inbalance be the same thing? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mountain\_Fire77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Mountain\_Fire77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mountain_Fire77)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/7 "2006-10-23T09:49:41Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] What is up with all these Christian nutjobs recently? (No offense to the non-nutjob Christians). I’m beginning to feel like there’s a forum somewhere that’s targetting us as their people to save for the month… Anyway, this had the look of a reposted spiel, so I googled a bit of it and yep, **Mountain\_Fire77** posted the same thing on sciforums (a[link](http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:jaO0BFAMLZ0J:www.sciforums.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D52915%26page%3D62+There+is+a+common+theory+that+gives+a+greater+understanding+to+dimensional+reality,+which+incidentally,+if+I+understand+correctly,+is+also+involved+in+the+concept6+of+Einstein%E2%80%99s+general+theory+of+relativity.+In+geometry,+we+speak+of+imaginary+figures+to+explain+mathematical+concepts.+The+theory+goes+that+if+you+take+a+line+(the+imaginary+figure+that+symbolizes+one+dimension,+theoretically+extending+into+infinity+in+either+direction),+and+square+it,+you+arrive+at+the+second+geometric+dimension:+the+plane.+The+plane+contains+the+line,+but+goes+beyond+it.+Its+surface+contains,+if+you+will,+a+myriad+of+lines,+theoretically+extending+into+infinity+on+all+points+of+its+flat+surface.+When+you+square+the+plane,+you+arrive+at+the+cube,+which+contains+both+the+line+and+the+plane+but+goes+beyond+that,+symbolizing+three-dimensional+space,+or+height,+depth,+and+width.&hl=en&lr=&strip=1) to the text-only google cache, since I can’t get at the page itself for some reason.) There’s also the masterpiece “A Great Video Which Is Throws The Theory Of Evolution Out Of The Window” ([cache linky](http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:TDnQuqmTxWAJ:www.sciforums.com/showthread.php%3Ft%3D58638+Mountain_Fire77&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2)) which is pretty self-explanatory. Mr. **Mountain\_Fire77** has also posted a thread entitled “A Great Video Your Science Teacher Didn’t Want You To See…” on [abovetopsecret.com](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread229309/pg1), which appears to be a conspiracy theorist site. Amusingly, even the people there think he’s a moron. And he’s also posted [this very thread](http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread230859/pg1) there, too. Oh, but the important thing is that the entire spiel is, as pointed out by someone on that last forum, entirely ripped off from [this site](http://www.mrrena.com/bio/add2.shtml), and as noted it’s a copywrited work. Mods? [/QUOTE] Ur’ve done your homework Sherlock, but i just wanted to get these topics to as many people as possible cause there’s a chance for every forum i post in that there be someone with a outstanding response to this article and thus bringing more wisdom to this subject, but my attempts to find such a prodigy and creature has failed on several fronts, but to be serious…I’d like to start a intellectual debate over this matter, the such as which people would get their granny involved ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/8 "2006-10-23T10:57:14Z")
[QUOTE=Mountain\_Fire77] Ur’ve done your homework Sherlock, but i just wanted to get these topics to as many people as possible cause there’s a chance for every forum i post in that there be someone with a outstanding response to this article and thus bringing more wisdom to this subject, but my attempts to find such a prodigy and creature has failed on several fronts, but to be serious…I’d like to start a intellectual debate over this matter, the such as which people would get their granny involved [/QUOTE] From what i’ve seen, at several seperate forums you’ve \*had \* an outstanding response to this article, and they’ve helped bring more wisdom to this subject - by rubbishing it. It seems as though, by posting it in so many forums, that you’re looking for validation (“You’re so right!”) rather than an actual debate on the subject. But to be fair, i’d like to ask you this; could you summarise what you’re getting from this article in your own words? This isn’t your own work (and that’s fine, as long as you attribute it to the right source and don’t post too much of a copywrited article) so it’s possible that it doesn’t entirely reflect your own views 100%. So what do _you_ think about the article? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/9 "2006-10-23T11:51:44Z")
**Mountain\_Fire77** , we take copyright violation quite seriously around here. Do not post the entire text of another person’s efforts, here, as your own. Particularly, do not post copyrighted works without attribution (only as much of a work as would be permitted under fair use laws–and that WITH attribution). Provide a link, as I have done. * * * In addition: [QUOTE=Mountain\_Fire77] Ur’ve done your homework Sherlock, … [/QUOTE] This will go much better for everyone if we leave out the personal insults. And while the following may be technically inside the line (insulting a group rather than a poster, directly), we also frown on insulting groups when the clear implication is to insult the poster. [QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] What is up with all these Christian nutjobs recently? [/QUOTE] [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/10 "2006-10-23T12:57:18Z")
That’s fair. Apologies to the board in general and **Mountain\_Fire77** in particular for that. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/11 "2006-10-23T13:42:25Z")
I’ll bite. From the linked article: > [@](#): > > More than anything I think that those who “hear voices” or the like have heightened spiritual awareness, entailing the involvement of very real spiritual entities and beings outside the scope of humanity: beyond the physical world. First, you need to prove that there is such thing as a “spirit”. I don’t believe that we have one. Secondly, you have to prove that this “spirit” communicates in any form. > [@](#): > > The spiritual aspect of humanity is often referred to as the soul. Most people agree that the soul is immortal. Not around here, they don’t. You’ll find that only a minorty of us even believe in “souls.” Prove that they exist. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/12 "2006-10-23T14:34:03Z")
> [@](#): > > More than anything I think that those who “hear voices” or the like have heightened spiritual awareness, entailing the involvement of very real spiritual entities and beings outside the scope of humanity: beyond the physical world. One would hope that spiritual entities would take the rare opportunity to share something more enlightening than the either banal observational commentary, blistering condemnation and criticism or suspicious and antagonistic suggestion that folks who hear voices often describe. They move in mysterious ways, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![miss\_elizabeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@miss\_elizabeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miss_elizabeth)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/13 "2006-10-23T14:34:36Z")
All I can say is, if you belive this, you’ve never spent any time with a schizophenic. I have, and it isn’t pretty. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/14 "2006-10-23T16:12:19Z")
I’m a schlzophrenic, and some of us are pretty! 😛 I suspect the OP’s interests lie solely with the promulgation of fundie-christian assertions about the dire consequences of being insufficiently Bible-pounded, but I actually _do_ think that schizophrenia is better described as an ailment of the spirit than a (nonproven, hypothetical) “chemical imbalance”. I would also assert that not all of us regard it as an illness of any sort. Condition ≠ illness. Not all differences are inferiorities, and I don’t care _how_ many diagnosed schizophrenics have been seen or known personally by _how_ many board members and perceived to be suffering horribly for it, the fact remains that you’ve _only seen them in a very nonwelcoming context_. (And people would have testified in much the same manner about homosexual people that they’d met or that they knew back in the days before Stonewall and the courage to come out). The theories about “chemical imbalance” are in large part reverse-engineered from a combination of studies of normative brain behavior and studies of the mechanism of drugs that people (not necessarily the patients) have found efficacious and useful in the treatment (and/or control) of schizophrenics. I have posted often (some would say _ad nauseum_, I suspect) about why the claims of clinical knowledge made by the psychiatric profession re: what schizophrenia actually is should be held at arm’s length with a very skeptical set of intellectual tweezers and surrounded by the quotation marks of dubiety. I’ll do so again here (and or post links to older posts/threads) if requested, but I’m also fine with a general consensus that most of you have heard it and don’t care to rehash. At any rate (returning to the OP’s premises), to the extent that spiritual crises have provoked the thoughts and behaviors most likely to land one a diagnosis of “schizophrenic”, the role played by conservative-fundamentalist-literalist christianity has been univocally and spectacularly that of _cause of trauma_, not solution. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/15 "2006-10-23T17:10:53Z")
I’ve never understood why “chemical imbalance” would have to be in opposition to “spiritual experience.” People experiencing psychosis, whether bipolar, schizophrenic, or from the use of psychomimetic drugs generally report experiencing profound shifts of meaning and meaningful connections. For many people, this has spiritual or religious significance. That its mechanism may be described chemically or functionally in some cases, or stopped in others, does not suggest to me that it is not also spiritual. Oliver Sacks argues that Hildegard of Bingen had migraines and that this accounts for the phenomena she experienced. Again, does being able to account for it biologically mean it wasn’t also religious? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/16 "2006-10-23T17:29:15Z")
I agree that the description of “chemical imbalance” is dubious. It’s a condition whose symptoms can be ameliorated with chemicals, but that doesn’t prove that the condition itself is simply the result of having brain chemicals in the wrong proportion. However, [QUOTE=AHunter3] I would also assert that not all of us regard it as an illness of any sort. Condition ≠ illness. Not all differences are inferiorities, and I don’t care _how_ many diagnosed schizophrenics have been seen or known personally by _how_ many board members and perceived to be suffering horribly for it, the fact remains that you’ve _only seen them in a very nonwelcoming context_. [/QUOTE] I’m pretty shocked by this. I don’t think there would be many people familiar with schizophrenia who would consider it to be just another aternative way of living, and not say that it’s definitely a pathology. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/17 "2006-10-23T18:21:59Z")
[QUOTE=Shoshana] I’ve never understood why “chemical imbalance” would have to be in opposition to “spiritual experience.” People experiencing psychosis, whether bipolar, schizophrenic, or from the use of psychomimetic drugs generally report experiencing profound shifts of meaning and meaningful connections. For many people, this has spiritual or religious significance. That its mechanism may be described chemically or functionally in some cases, or stopped in others, does not suggest to me that it is not also spiritual. Oliver Sacks argues that Hildegard of Bingen had migraines and that this accounts for the phenomena she experienced. Again, does being able to account for it biologically mean it wasn’t also religious? [/QUOTE] What the hell are “chemicals” anyway? We’ve made up these words to describe the substances present in the brain, but they’re just labels. When you get right down to it, it’s pretty goddamned impossible to explain just how those “chemicals” cause us to have consciousness and feel emotions. Neuroscience is really still in its infancy, and there are many more questions than there are answers. There’s not neccessarily a contradiction between “spirituality” and “brain chemicals.” In the end, they’re both ways of understanding the as-yet-unknowable. ---
**Author:** ![Nature\_s\_Call](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nature_s_call/32/19006_2.png) [@Nature\_s\_Call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nature_s_Call)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/18 "2006-10-23T18:32:19Z")
I too am very surprised by **AHunter3** ’s statement, and would like to know more. My only direct experience is as an instructor. One of my students (I am told) was schizophrenic. He was pleasant, often bright, and at times uttered some strange _non sequiturs_. Then all of a sudden (again, I am told) for some reason he stopped taking his meds. His looks became leering stares I would interpret as menacing. His mannerisms became deliberate and his utterances more and more bizarre. Eventually he was asked to leave the school, I can only assume as the result of complaints. I was not involved in the decision in any way, but to be honest I was not surprised and a bit relieved. I bring this up as a request to have my ignorance fought. My working definition of schizophrenia has been a state of brain chemistry that produces delusional perceptions (hearing voices or otherwise perceiving events that do not map to reality). Is this definition correct? Are there degrees of affliction (if that’s the right word) beyond which even **AHunter3** would agree require “fixing”? To the extent to which “A Beautiful Mind” is true, is it illustrative of what **AHunter3** means, i.e. a condition that doesn’t need fixing or at least where the cure is worse than the disease? If delusions are part of a schizophrenic’s reality, is it possible to identify them as not real (as seems apparent in “A Beautiful Mind”)? Is it easy to do so or does it take heroic mental ability? To directly address the OP’s title (I haven’t read the article): Doesn’t the fact that medication appears to reduce the delusions and return the “sufferer” to “normalcy” (I use these terms for their convenience and stand to be corrected) indicate that it is an affliction attributable to chemistry? Has couselling either by a priest or by a psychologist ever “helped” a schizophrenic, providing support for the spiritual illness theory? Has prayer or religious conversion worked? Anticipating the answers to be “no,” doesn’t that support the (shall we say) medical basis theory? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/19 "2006-10-23T19:34:08Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t think there would be many people familiar with schizophrenia who would consider it to be just another aternative way of living, and not say that it’s definitely a pathology. Historically, the movement against forced psychiatric treatment has had a large contingent of people who did not consider themselves to be ‘sick’ despite having been diagnosed with one or another ‘mental illness’ (very definitely including schizophrenia although not limited to it); for most of the last 40 years, the main political ‘line’ they (we) have taken is that schizophrenia (and the rest, and ‘mental illness’ as a whole) just doesn’t exist; that, like medieval witch-burners who considered themselves to be burning witches, the psychiatric profession is doing things to us in the name of a nonexistent ailment/phenomenon. But not only is it hard to prove the nonexistence of anything, it’s also hard to be taken seriously when what you’re saying sounds so close to textbook denial, and I don’t just mean ‘denial’ in the clinical sense of the word: people being red-baited as ‘communists’ found it unworkable to deny that any subsersive communist fifth column existed in the United States, students accused of smoking pot might more readily be assumes to be lying if they deny that they’re aware of any students who smoke pot… it’s like the recurrent joke on this board about “The first rule of \_\_\_ is that there IS no \_\_\_\_”. And besides, although damn near anyone can, under the right (wrong) circumstances, run afoul of a diagnosis-tossing shrink, it’s just not true that everyone is equally likely to end up with a psych diagnosis. There’s _something_ we have in common enough of the time for everyone from nursing students to subway riders to recognize us from the DSM-IV description. Yeah, we’ve seen those behaviors. You have. I have. Etc. One could assert (as I do) that, like extreme anger or visceral horror, it’s a _state_ that anyone’s mind can _end up in_ under the right (wrong) circumstances, but even then there are people who _end up_ like that with far less provocation than other people who in essentially identical circumstances don’t display that pattern. So there’s an “us”. And in the movement there’s a growing tendency to embrace an identity-in-common. But we see who we are and can be as a much wider spectrum that folks who are only aware of us when we’re, umm, you know, like that. And there are trade-offs, and some of us think we don’t have such a bad deal. Or wouldn’t if our culture treated us like people with a difference instead of sick/dangerous people. (Did you know we aren’t more dangerous or inclined to violence than the general pop?). Anyway, if you want to read more, Google phrases like “consumers / survivors / expatients” and “forced treatment” and “psychiatric oppression”. > [@](#): > > Are there degrees of affliction (if that’s the right word) beyond which even **AHunter3** would agree require “fixing”? The determining factor is the wishes of the person. If someone considers themself to need “fixing”, and the “fix” ls legal and available, who am I to tell them that I know better than them what’s best for them? On the other hand, if someone likes who they are and hasn’t broken any laws and cannot be shown (by standards that apply equally to schizzies and nonschizzies alike, mind you!) to lack basic decision-making competency, who is the doctor to tell them what’s best for them? The right to refuse treatment is a fundamental civil right and is our central rallying cause. (We also want _fully informed_ consent and have a lot of critical things to say about the rose-colored lavender-scented lying bullshit that the profession offers to mental patients regarding the efficacy of recommended treatments and how scientifically reliable and useful their diagnostic system and treatment protocols are. Yeah, they help some people, but the success rate and scientific backing isn’t like “insulin for diabetes” (one of their common claims); it may be a bit better than “whisky for a broken heart”, but it looks closer to that than the insulin analogy. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538/20 "2006-10-23T19:39:22Z")
I know very well that **AHunter3** has a wealth of opinion to share on the legitimacy of the diagnosis and/or explanations for schizophrenia, and I don’t want to get in the way of that for those who have been down that road before. I do respect very much his perspective on the matter. I would be curious to hear more about the “nonwelcoming” context, however. I assume that by this he is referring to a medical/treatment context, although I might be wrong. I would suggest that both anecdotally and from an empirical standpoint, symptoms of schizophrenia are pretty much the same across settings. The guy muttering to himself on the street corner may be in a nonwelcoming context, but at some point one has to wonder if all contexts that schizophrenics experience could be described as non-welcoming, and what that might mean for the definition and cause of non-welcoming. Part of my job for several years as a graduate student was interviewing people with schizophrenia and their family members. Certainly, the family could be described as a non-welcoming context, but I can tell you that family members witness and bear a great deal of the burden of dealing with symptoms of schizophrenia. Thus, I head into the discussion about the non-welcoming context with a clear bias to the effect that “wherever you go, there you are,” or “you make your own gravy,” or “you can’t run away from a pantload,” or that contexts quickly become non-welcoming when confronted with several possible features of schizophrenia. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-schizophrenia-a-spiritual-illness-or-a-chemical-in-balance/377538.md?page=2)