Schizophrenia

[A_Seagull]

Listen up! Schizophrenia is the title of this thread, yet the thread is rife with misconceptions about schizophrenia.

You cannot create schizophrenia. You cannot get schizophrenia from another person. Being stuck in life is not a risk factor for schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a form of psychosis; i.e. a person loses touch with reality.

The disorder is characterized by relatively fixed delusions and hallucinations. In addition to having false beliefs and hearing voices that others do not hear, a schizophrenic displays disorganized thinking and speaking.

A core symptom of schizophrenia is a deficit in cognitive abilities. Most schizophrenics fail to accept that they have any illness at all rather than suspect that they have a mental disorder. They are irrational, totally out there and just plain crazy.

A straightforward description of schizophrenia appears in Wikipedia.

And this is a philosophy forum....

So what is the philosophy of schizophrenia and other psychotic symptoms?

[commonsense]

And this is a philosophy forum....
So what is the philosophy of schizophrenia and other psychotic symptoms?

Now we’re getting somewhere.

If you live a good life, an ethical life, an altruistic one, are you morally bound, within the limits of your personal safety, to help a schizophrenic person to receive urgently needed psychiatric care?

Let’s suppose that there’s a schizophrenic man in the food court of a mall. He is shouting incoherently at a trash receptacle. Bystanders are cautiously watching the scene as it unfolds.

A mall cop approaches and is able to calm him. You hear the cop calling for assistance over his radio. If you do nothing, this mentally ill person will be taken to the nearest police station.

Are you morally bound to act in his best interest to the extent that you would bring him to the nearest mental health clinic? Or do you let the police jail him for disturbing the peace?

Would it make any difference if instead of being schizophrenic, the man was an amputee who was only mumbling nonsense to himself in the vicinity of the trash?

Would it make a difference if the man was a diabetic whose blood sugar had fallen below normal?

What if the man, unbeknownst to you, was just speaking a foreign language?

What if he's your own father?

[duszek]

Yes, these questions are very good.

People should be interested in what is wrong with other people.

Schizophrenia sounds dangerous.
An epileptic attack looks dangerous but the person is not, so it is good to know how to help when it occurs to someone.

It´s an important moral decision how to react to people with mental problems.
First we need to know some basics about it all.

[duszek]

Another interesting mental disorder is when someone wants to get attention no matter what, like a troll does.

It would be useful to have some insight into the psyche of such a person.

[Dubious]

What I never understood was why a schizophrenic would obey a voice in their head telling them what to do. Surely there would at least be an internal argument if an internal voice is telling a person to do irrational and unethical things?

I think the voice is often heard coming from the outside as if it were a separate reality and therefore "announced" with much more plausibility as if it came from an external authority. This changes the entire "perspective" of the message as deriving from a higher source being more in the nature of a demand, request or warning.

To the afflicted mind that voice is at least as real as anything we normally encounter. The experience of such could easily override any "internal" dialogs.

[A_Seagull]

Another interesting mental disorder is when someone wants to get attention no matter what, like a troll does.

What makes you think that that can be classified as a 'mental disorder'?

One might just as well suppose that someone who is pompous and claims to know everything has a 'mental disorder'.

[Greta]

What I never understood was why a schizophrenic would obey a voice in their head telling them what to do. Surely there would at least be an internal argument if an internal voice is telling a person to do irrational and unethical things?

I think the voice is often heard coming from the outside as if it were a separate reality and therefore "announced" with much more plausibility as if it came from an external authority. This changes the entire "perspective" of the message as deriving from a higher source being more in the nature of a demand, request or warning.

That makes sense but I cannot imagine most people on this forum, being of the ilk that would fight with their own shadow, acquiescing to any voice - internal, external or otherwise.

My first thought was that lack of life experience and understanding could make schizophrenics vulnerable to impression. However, numerous schizophrenics refer to biblical imagery and concepts. I'm thinking that, if one is soft and gullible enough mentally to implicitly literally believe the obvious metaphor and mythology of the Bible then such a person probably would interpret the orders as coming from God, Satan, angels, demons etc, which would be more compelling than just any old voice in the head

Certainly if I had a voice in my heading telling me to harm or kill someone I'd be looking for help rather than obeying but, then again, like you and many others I'm not inclined to believe in simple supernatural explanations and thus would not accord any authority to the unwanted words.

[duszek]

Another interesting mental disorder is when someone wants to get attention no matter what, like a troll does.

What makes you think that that can be classified as a 'mental disorder'?

One might just as well suppose that someone who is pompous and claims to know everything has a 'mental disorder'.

Yes, we can talk about this.
I have no preconceptions about what qualifies as a mental disorder or a serious mental disease.

[duszek]

These imagined voices coming from outside, can they be produced by drugs like LSD ?

An illusionist or a magician produces illusions for entertainment.
There is no danger in that.
But if we tried to produce an illusion of a voice talking to us in our head ?