The death of Master Chef contestant Josh Marks, who committed suicide within 24 hours of receiving a schizophrenia diagnosis, inspires PsychCentral writer Patrick Tracey to ask “Is it time to consign ‘schizophrenia’ to the dustbin of medical terms?”
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While I certainly agree that it’s time to retire the diagnosis “schizophrenia,”(along with the rest of the DSM diagnoses),the misinformation and sheer psycho-babble presented in this piece is astounding. “Manic depressive disorder” is “the condition that most often precedes full-blown schizophrenia” – Really? What research says so? “It was more likely his neurobiological fate to begin to experience auditory hallucination as his brain reached maturity.” Sheer nonsense.
Or perhaps he was a trauma survivor? According to the article, “The police subdued the “gentle giant” with batons and pepper spray at the time, and placed him on a 5150 psychiatric hold.”
And rather than suggest that all diagnoses are unhelpful, the article mentions replacing the word “schizophrenia” with something called “salience syndrome” (more psychobabble).
Articles like this make me despair that we will ever be able to get through the absurd beliefs that the public seems to hold about so-called “mental illness” in order to have reasonable, rational conversations about how to deal with extreme states.
