Introduction
Unfortunately, most mental disorders remain stigmatized by the social majority. The dynamic is such that the more severely a mental illness affects one’s life, the stronger the associated stigma. It is particularly applicable to people with schizophrenia who have to deal with many damaging myths about their condition in public and online. I think the primary source of schizophrenia stigma is its naming; the word is to blame.
The Word Is to Blame
It is no secret that the psychological and psychiatric term ‘ schizophrenia’ is essentially a Greek word. According to Harper (n.d.), its most semantically close translation is “a splitting of the mind” (para. 1). Such meaning reinforced the already existing historical stigma of psychological illnesses, which led to the creation of a plethora of harmful myths and stereotypes about people with this condition.
Watson (2023) explains that these range from having a psychiatric comorbidity, such as dissociative identity disorder (DID), to being untreatable. She notes that “64% of Americans believe the condition involves DID” (Watson, 2023, para. 7). The phonetics of the word, atypical for English due to its Greek and partly German origin, also contribute to the stigma.
A New Term
As I see it, the social stigma around schizophrenia can be reduced by changing its official term. There is a successful lexical transformation of drug addiction into a chronic disease of substance abuse. Much of the public stopped perceiving individuals with it as dangerous outcasts without self-control and began seeing them as underserved persons experiencing a life crisis.
Moreover, a study by Mesholam-Gately et al. (2021) shows that most people involved want such a change for schizophrenia because they find the current word stigmatizing. Witnesses of the stigma know the weight of the word and its harmful effect. However, a new one can make life easier for people with the discussed disease.
Conclusion
Words are powerful and, therefore, can be damaging even when they do not contain implicit or explicit antagonizing semantics. Schizophrenia is one of these, and the stigma to which this term has contributed dramatically proves this. Professionals from the fields of academia and healthcare can help people with this mental disorder who feel ostracized because of the public perception. The development of a new term is how the social situation for individuals with schizophrenia can be improved.
References
Harper, D. R. (n.d.). Schizophrenia (n.). In Online Etymology Dictionary.
Mesholam-Gately, R. I., Varca, N., Spitzer, C., Parrish, E. M., Hogan, V., Behnke, S. H., Larson, L., Rosa-Baez, C., Schwirian, N., Stromeyer IV, C., Williams, M. J., Saks, E. R., & Keshavan, M. S. (2021). Are we ready for a name change for schizophrenia? A survey of multiple stakeholders. Schizophrenia Research, 238, 152-160.
Watson, S. (2023). Schizophrenia myths and facts. WebMD.
