IN 2011, schizophrenia will be 100 years old. This also happens to be the year in which the main classification systems for psychiatric disorders are due to be revised. The question is: does the term “schizophrenia” deserve to survive into its second century?
Most patients would say no. In my work I find the diagnosis very difficult to use because it depresses patients and their carers and stigmatises them at home and at work. Patients constantly tell me how unhelpful they find it, and many simply reject the term.
Indeed, the classification has little if any scientific basis. Previously known…
