One statement made was that schizophrenics were less prone to violence than the general population and that alcohol or drug abuse were the strongest contributing factors to violence.
Well color me ignorant, I too would have thought schizophrenics are more prone to violence…In fact, I’m suspicious of the statistic; I wonder if there is some hidden spin on it given by someone. (like: schizophrenics aren’t as violent because the meds they are on are helping; or: definitions of violence are such to skew the results; or: the violence is blamed on drugs and alcohol problems…not schizophrenia, even though the person may have both; or: more violence is caused by non-schizophrenics, simply because there are more non-schizophrenics in the population)
Can someone confirm this to be a really true statement? Is an unmedicated schizophrenic more or less likely to be violent?
I know a schizophrenic quite well who goes off of his meds frequently and he’s more concerned with other people harming him or thinking bad things about him. It seems of be a more personal, internal thing, over an interactive thing. Things are going on in their heads and their moods. That’s their focus…as far as what I’ve experienced.
Don’t have a cite, but in my experience schizoprenics are no more (or less) violent than general population. I never feel threatened by schizoprenic patients, even unmedicated, but I am relatively strong and fit man so it could be a factor. YMMV, but my semi-expert opinion would be that they are approximately as violent, as general population.
The statistic is accurate. We are less violent than non-schizzies.
The reason people find us disturbing is that our thought processes and behaviors are unpredictable to those around us. The average mean drunk or coercively-inclined bully are people whose escalating behavior fits patterns that others can understand and see coming, and most of the time when actual violence transpires it does not surprise anyone around them. Likewise with muggers, teenage gangs, frat boys, badass rapper-wannabees, and so on.
Our violence, when it does occur, freaks people out because it’s less obvious how to steer us, or steer around us, and/or because it seems to come from out of nowhere. For some reason people are less disconcerted about a gang member knifing someone on the subway platform for theft and intimidation than they are about a nutcase who comes up behind a total stranger and shoves them into the path of an approaching train for no apparent reason whatsoever.
I guess the question would be, why would you think schizophrenics would be more violent than the general population? Most of the symptoms of schizophrenia are symptoms of social withdrawal…lack of affect, catatonia, disintrest in activity and lack of energy, disorganized thinking. These are all things that would make you less likely to be violent toward another person.
Julian Jaynes mentions that schizophrenics are among the “best” patients in mental hospitals in his book “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”*. That the medicating of schizophrenics in a hospital setting is, in his opinion, more for the benefit of the visitors and such than for the benefit of the patient.
*A great read, but should be considered speculative fiction in parts.
I volunteered at a homeless shelter for a couple of years and I agree that it’s a misconception that schizophrenics are prone to violence. In my experience, the more severe the schizophrenia, the more withdrawn the person was. They had a childlike quality to them. The less severe ones, still not volatile, were quite gentle actually. At the shelter, I was always comfortable around the schizophrenics and in fact, it’s was more difficult to to gain their trust than the other way around.
The demographic that frightened me the most were the unmedicated bi-polar men and women that also had drug and alcohol problems. You just never knew when they were going to crack.
(Crack addicts were the worst of all but it was hard to tell if they also suffered a mental illness on top of it unless they had a diagnosis prior to their addiction)
For most of us, “violent schizophrenic” goes together linguistically like “peanut butter and jelly” or “his and hers”. We’ve got the image in our minds from books and movies of the unpredictable Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys type “schizo” who might explode at any moment without warning.
Most newsworthy schizophrenics are probably in the news because they’ve done something violent in public, so that further skews the public perception in favor of the ignorance.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Also, people are still ignorant to the fact that schizophrenia is not a synonym for multiple personality disorder. (That one really pisses me off)
I think another thing that drives home this false notion of violence among sczhizophrenic people is that, yes, sometimes there are outbursts but no one considers why.
I think the most mentally “healthy” individual would lose it if;
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[li]They were institutionalized against their will.[/li][li]Forced to take meds against their will[/li][li]Abused physically or emotionally in the facility (or by family)[/li][li]Incarcerated in prison where they are put in general population.[/li][/ul] .
Think about what happens to a gentle non-violent male in prison. Now think about how he’s going to interact with the world when he’s out on the streets afterward. I think a large segment of that population is also suffering from some form of PTSD. (My opionion, I have no cite for this)
People in health professions these days try to say “people with schizophrenia” instead of “schizophrenics” (at least in Britain). It’s considered to be better to avoid defining someone by such a horrible illness. I’m not having a go at anyone here so if for some reason you find this controversial please start another thread.
My personal experience was with an exboyfriend who was diagnosed as schizophrenic while we were dating. He had some violent tendencies and some rage issues, but he also had a drug addiction (which I did not share BTW). I’ve read (don’t have a cite, this was long ago) that drugs can bring latent schizophrenia out. My theory is that his drug problem brought the disorder out, ansd his continued self-medication with illegal drugs encouraged his violence and irrational, out-of-proportion-to-the-issue rages.
Exactly. As with gay people, we really really need to come OUT. Otherwise you never will read newspaper stories that “Councilman John Forbes gave his endorsement to the medical initiative. Forbes, a schizophrenic and a diabetic himself, said the new provisions…” nor will you read “Candidate Roskvorno, in an attempt to court schizophrenic support, promised increased funding for user-run mutual support groups…”
Is it possible the myth of violent people with schizophrenia was started by people who observed the effects of schizophrenic people trying to self medicate with alcohol or illegally obtained drugs?
edited to add: Yeah, other people already said this. I should refresh and preview before I post. I suck.
People are involuntarily committed and subjeced to involuntary treatment by the mental health system. This constitutes an exception to the general rule that the Powers That Be don’t get to lock you up in a cage unless you did something. It also constitutes an excepton to the rule that they don’t get to infantilize you and treat you like a little kid who can’t make your own decisions without a competency hearing, wherein the burden of proof is on those alleging that you’ve lost your marbles.
That state of affairs could conceivably distress the general public.
Along comes the prevailing myth of the psycho. We have to lock them up for your protection. Lunatics, you know. Paranoid schizophrenics. Freaking madmen. Staten Island Ferry Boat Slasher. Son of Sam. Batshit Insane.
I think the general public associates schizophrenia with being out of control, and we are taught from a very early age that it’s a very bad thing to be out of control. So I think there’s a lot of “projection” going on: “Damn, if this guy can lose control so easily, what happens if I do?” [shudder].
Which generally fails to distinguish between being psychotic (or having a psychosis) and having psychopathic tendencies - the two words mean completely different things.
Schizophrenia is a psychotic illness. A sufferer is no more likely to have psychopathic tendencies than any other member of the general population.
Another stupid media trait is to constantly describe people as not just schizophrenic but paranoid schizophrenic, as if the paranoid bit makes it worse. Actually other types of schizophrenia can be worse.
I am pretty sure that anyone suffering schizophrenia would have thought patterns and a psychological makeup largely incompatible with psychopathy or sociopathy. Sociopaths are distinguished by patterns of behaviour often evident as early as childhood.
Paranoid ideation is pretty common in schizophrenia and it certainly does make relating with schizophrenics more difficult. Certainly out of the body of symptoms there are “worse” things such as catatonia but catatonic patients are easier to deal with.
In terms of the OP though from my psychiatric nursing days I am struggling to remember any incidents of unprovoked violence commited by psychotic patients but I can think of a litany of events featuring drunks, drug users and your average suburban dickhead with impulse control problems.
I think psychotics usually have too much internalized stuff going on to give outward expression unless they misinterpret an intervention. And their big time favourite aggressive act is shouting.