The Ongoing Challenges of Schizophrenia

They are silent because the division walls
are broken down in the brain,
and hours when they might be understood at all
begin and leave again.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Insane”
Schizophrenia is an elusive disease, which makes it a difficult one to relate to among the general population. It is easy to sympathize with someone who is suffering from an evident physical malady, such as a broken leg, or even an invisible illness, like cancer, which generally attacks the body in ways that are not cognitive in nature. One is readily able to put oneself in that person’s place and empathize with their plight. On the other hand, a mental illness like schizophrenia can prove difficult to imagine since it affects the victim’s ability to interpret reality, sometimes without any apparent physical symptoms.
People who do not suffer from the disease may struggle to imagine it; they may ponder how it must feel to have a compromised mind — a mind that struggles to function normally while processing reality. Half a century since CT scans first revealed abnormalities in the brains of schizophrenia patients, scientists assert the disorder is a systemic disruption to the brain’s entire communication system, having found that frayed communication cords are present throughout the brains of people with the disease. It is in fact a kind of fracture then, only of the brain rather than of bone.
On account of the misinterpretations of reality brought on by their compromised minds, ...

Source: World of Psychology - January 24, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Casey Clabough Tags: Communication Personal Psychology Schizophrenia Stigma Suicide Violence and Aggression Delusions Depression Empathy Hallucinations Miscommunication Mystery Nonverbal communication Paranoia Psychosis Schizoaffective Disorder Source Type: blogs