By Mathew Ahmon A while ago, I wrote a post on a potential name change for schizophrenia (Michelle also tackles this topic in this Schizophrenia and the City episode), and we concluded that changing the name would ultimately do nothing to erase stigma. A recent Slate article revisits this topic, focusing instead on diagnostic [...]
A Glimpse Into Schizophrenia Overseas by Matthew Ahmon The African people suffer from many things – famine, drought, epidemic, and colonialism – but a recent CNN article comments on a less well-known problem: stigma. In Africa, mental healthcare is ignored by the state and even humanitarian organizations, which are more interested in the big names, like [...]
Is it Criminal to Be Mentally Ill? Mental illness is becoming increasingly criminalized by the system. Jail is often where a lot of people with mental illness end up, simply because there is no system designed to help them. This was the case at a county jail in Oregon. The story of Jermelle [...]
Why it is difficult for people to realize their own mental illness Anosognosia (uh-noh-suh-noh-zha), or a person’s inability to recognize that they have a mental illness, affects an estimated 30% of people with schizophrenia and 20% of people with bipolar disorder. It is not denial; rather, it is hypothesized to be a condition [...]
Will changing the name of a mental illness help de-stigmatize it? A recently published New York Times article describes a survey designed to build momentum for the name change. The name “schizophrenia,” meaning “split mind” and coined in 1908 by Dr. Eugen Bleuler, was not intended to have negative connotations. However, it has taken [...]
