DBSA Tennessee Past President, S.L. Brannon
share
  • Home
  • About
  • FIRST BOOK: Two Agreements
  • My new book: A Brand New Day
  • Advocacy
    • Letters to our Governor
    • Advocacy Action Items for DBSA Tennessee
    • Submitted Relative Articles
  • Network Resources
  • Additional Events
  • I\\\\\'ve been there
  • Forums
  • Contacts

Can renaming a serious mental illness remove stigma?

2/17/2016

0 Comments

 
Renaming Schizophrenia Could Combat Stigma And Help Patients Recover

Huffing Post Science February 2016      
Carolyn Gregoire

A psychiatrist calls for scientists and the public to abandon the term "schizophrenia." 
The stigma that surrounds mental illness is not only insulting to the roughly one-quarter of the world's population that has one, it can also negatively impact their willingness to seek help and their recovery.
But perhaps no mental illness is more stigmatized than schizophrenia, a devastating ailment that affects around 1 percent of the general population. The poorly understood condition is characterized by symptoms including delusions, hallucination, abnormal social behavior, paranoia and cognitive impairments.
The term "schizophrenia" itself tends to call to mind split personalities, disturbing imaginary voices and visions, and violent outbursts, according to health advocates including Brian Semple of the British non-profit Rethink Mental Illness.
"Unfortunately, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding around schizophrenia," he told Medical News Today. 
For this reason, Dr. Jim van Os, a psychiatrist at Maastricht University Medical Centre in The Netherlands, is one of a growing number of clinicians calling for updated classifications around schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders as a way to reduce prejudice and misperceptions. 
In a paper published in The British Medical Journal on Tuesday, van Os argues that the term "schizophrenia" -- which he says may needlessly scare patients by calling to mind a debilitating brain disease -- should be removed from the International Classification of Diseases, which is now being revised, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. He suggests replacing it with a more neutral, updated label such as "psychosis spectrum disorder."  

PLoS One
fMRI brain scans show differences in brain activity in people diagnosed with schizophrenia.Taken from Greek words meaning "split" and "mind," the term schizophrenia dates back to the inhumane treatment of psychotic patients in "insane asylums" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and still carries these unfortunate connotations. It doesn't refer to any actual symptoms of the disorder. 
"If you have depression, then people understand this disease about feeling depressed -- I feel depressed sometimes so I know where this patient is coming from," van Os told The Huffington Post. "But schizophrenia is a rather mystifying term that has nothing to do with psychosis itself... It doesn't help explain to the public what psychosis is about in a way that people can relate to their own experience, which is very important." 
Japan and South Korea have already dropped the term, to positive results. After replacing it with a less negatively charged and more accurate descriptor ("integration dysregulation syndrome"), patients were better able to cope with their diagnoses. They were also more likely to seek help and less likely to commit suicide, according to a 2013 study published in the journal Psychological Medicine.

The real entity that we should be studying and diagnosing is psychosis spectrum disorder." Dr. Jim van Os, of Maastricht University Medical CentreThese illnesses are classified in many different categories. Van Os also argues that current classifications do not acknowledge the continuity between schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, including schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, bipolar disorder with psychotic features and depression with psychotic features.
Instead, psychotic disorders including schizophrenia exist on a spectrum, much like the autism spectrum of disorders, according to van Os. Such a spectrum ranging from mild psychotic episodes to severe schizophrenia. 
"The real entity that we should be studying and diagnosing is psychosis spectrum disorder," van Os said. 
The problem is that schizophrenia is separated from these other ailments and put into a worst-prognosis category unto itself. In this case, word choice is more than mere semantics.
Van Os hopes that changing the way we talk about the disorder can help us to decrease stigma while also encouraging public understanding and compassionate psychiatric care. 
In a response to the BMJ article, Dutch psychiatrist Jan P.L. Leijten said that following van Os's suggestions had yielded positive results with his patients. 
"In my own practice I tell people with psychotic problems the same as Jim van Os suggests in this article," Leijten wrote. "It gives the patient a positive perspective and appears the best way to commit [them] to the necessary treatment."



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author - 

    S.L. Brannon D.Div..

    Editor: numerous contributors are personally invited.

    Archives

    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All
    AARP
    Action Alert
    Action-alert
    Advocacy
    Affirmation
    Affordable Care Act
    Allen Doederlein
    Alternative Medicine
    Bad Law
    Bad-law
    Barber Bill Proposal
    Bipolar
    Borderline Personality Disorder
    Bp Magazine
    Branding
    Budget
    Caregivers
    Compassion
    Co Occurring Disorders
    Cooccurring Disorders
    Coping
    Crazy
    DBSA
    Dbsa Tennessee
    Dbsa-tennessee
    Dc
    Dc95f383fe5b
    Death
    Deaths Of Thousands
    Demi Lovato
    Democrat
    Denial
    Depression
    Dual Diagnosis
    Education
    Elected Officals
    Elected-officals
    Forced Commitment
    Grieving
    Health Care
    Health-care
    Health Care Law
    Health-care-law
    Health Reform
    Health-reform
    Help For Depression
    Homelessveterans
    Homeless Veterans
    Hopeworkscommunity
    Huffington Post
    Hurts Most Vulnerable
    Hurts-most-vulnerable
    I'm Here
    Immoral
    Jobs
    Larry Drain
    Leading Researchers And Clinicians
    Legislative Bill
    Legislative-bill
    Malpractice
    Mc Donaldsa18086f9b6
    Medicaid-expansion
    Medications
    Medicine
    Memorial
    Mental Health
    Mental Health Care
    Mental-health-care
    Mental-health-day-on-the-hill
    Mental Health In Tennessee
    Mental-health-in-tennessee
    Mental Health Services
    Mission
    Money
    Mood Disorders
    Moving Backwards
    Moving-backwards
    Murphy-bill-proposal
    National-institues-of-mental-health
    New Laws
    Outstanding-performance
    Parity
    Patient-protection
    Peer-specialist
    Peer Support
    Peer Support Centers
    Peer-support-centers
    Personal Stories
    Personal Story
    Personal-story
    Petition
    Petition-to-save-service-centers
    Politics
    Prejudice
    Proposed Legislative Bill
    Proposed-legislative-bill
    Protected Health Information
    Ptsd
    Pushing Back Against Stigma
    Recovery
    Republican
    Resilience
    Resulting In Death
    Scientific Advisory Board
    Self Advocacy
    Self Help
    Senator Murphy
    Silence
    Social-security
    State Organization
    Steve L Brannon
    Steve L Brannonf11c90eedf
    Stigma
    Suicidal Ideations
    Support Groups
    Teens
    Tennessee Department Of Mental Health And Substance Abuse
    Tennessee-department-of-mental-health-and-substance-abuse
    Tennessee Government
    Tennessee-government
    The Leading Patient Directed National Organization
    The Leading Patientdirected National Organizationf0151a2bc0
    Themighty.com
    Therapy
    U-s-congressman
    Vanderbilt-university
    Veterans
    Veterans-employment
    Victimized
    Vulnerable
    Washington
    Wrap-training
    Youth

    RSS Feed
Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo used under Creative Commons from DominusVobiscum