PRINCIPLES OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGYINTRODUCTION I. HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM The mystery of schizophrenia. Why does the diseasehappen? Who does it happen to? Where is the cause? What is itsgenesis? And more specifically, what is the intrinsic nature ofthis madness? Questions like these have been raised by doctorsand shamans alike for nearly two centuries now, and, as of yet,not one among the scientific community at large, or in the past,has produced any definite universal answer, solution,or cure, only vast quantities of indefinite research, a fat bog of statistical data for the medical establishment(and the na ve student) to delve and sink into. The search for a remedy. Where shall we start? In thebeginning, of course, to carefully trace the past courses ofexamination concerning schizophrenia by the various researchersand authorities on the subject. Perhaps then we can learn fromthose attempts for a ‘cure’ and their subsequent ‘failings’ andbecome the wiser insofar as obtaining some type of knowledge,however limited, in knowing what to avoid in the future in orderto treat the victims of this bewildering, mysterious condition.There is a good possibility that we might never per se find oneultimate definitive solution to this medical dilemma, but maybewe can come to terms with the disease of schizophrenia and copewith it by fashioning some sort of moderate resolution. Since the age of the Greeks, madness, i.e. insanity,has always had an established history in Western civilization. And rightly so. It’s the one thing which classic society had totake a stand against, for its own survival depended on theaffront. Governments are empowered by the people in the questfor human order. Madness, of course, stands in direct oppositionto this organization. People often fear what they do not knowof. Consequently, the insane were brushed under the rug andshipped to ‘bins’ which resembled, for all intents and purposes,the dungeon-prison. In the past, these ‘defective’ were forcedto live in squalor, in chains, in the most deplorable conditionswith no chance of ever seeing the outside world again. This wasone of ‘Western’ society’s cruel secrets, just one of afew(racism being one of them for example) where the old European-man had to suppress that which was in contrast to his status-quo. But this wasn’t the case all over the globe. In fact, in NorthAmerica, the early tribe inhabitants considered the lunatic as aperson of poetic vision and prophecy. There the ‘lunatic’ was notreviled, but revered. Now I’m not trying to praise and promulgatethe social protocol of the ‘natural man’ – at his finest. I’monly attempting to make the point that insanity is a specificWestern notion. It can be only understood and realized in termsof the Western individual in the Western world. For if we knockaway the surrounding walls of authority and order, insanity tendsto be something more along the lines of a simple behavioral tendency, no different than the rest, as the mark of Nietzsche may attest. II. GOALS OF THE PRESENT STUDY Schizophrenia is a unique form of madness insofar asits time of entry into the course of European history. Belowmarks the indelible evidence which demonstrates its rise andprominence in society.As anyone can see, the rise in admissions was unprecedented.Schizophrenia was most definitely responsible for this onset andthe surge of insanity among the population, here being in Londonand Wales. The symptoms as noted by puzzled doctors were variousand “writers in Europe did report an alarming, acute increase ofunmanageable insanity in their societies.” Was the society toblame as the source of this functional psychosis? Gottesmanexamines this theory as “a tendency toward this kind of mentalbreakdown may have always been present in humans[i.e. apropensity], but emerged as an incapacitating illness only underthe stress of losing personal space in increasingly urbanized andindustrialized societies.” Gottesman also projects the theorythat schizophrenia was a new disease, perhaps the result of “amutated bacterium that appeared in France soon after theNapoleonic wars and spread throughout the West.” Anotherpossibility also cited causally is the breakdown of culturaltraditions and the family unit, but this is, for all intents andpurposes, only a consequent of the presence of an industrialsociety in the life of modern-man. Therefore, it is most probable the “assembly-line” society that mankind has created for himself stimulated the disease of schizophrenia among the populace who had a biological predisposition towards it. Perhaps, this predisposition is within all of us and under certain key environmental factors we are provoked and forced into the condition. This dichotomy of the mental and the physical seem to be the mystery behind the disease. If we could find the key-elements, the internal-external combination which forces the disease from the recesses of the mind into the forefront of thepersonality, then – maybe – we might have something on the nature of the beast. METHOD The method of choice is psychoanalysis. The only way
possible for an individual to overcome schizophrenia is byenolization. One-on-one examinations of the individual’spersonality should be made by a specialist. Only a carefullyexamined account of the mental and physical health history of thepatient can give us the answers we need in order to determine ifthe patient can function within the guidelines of society’snorms, i.e. Law. But should we just permit the dysfunctional toroam about the masses? Is there the possibility that theschIzophrenic are going to cause harm to the other ‘healthy’members of society? The answer tends to be ‘not really’(that iscolloquially). Research data out of London from Eve Johnstoneand colleagues has “provided unbiased information about thedisturbed behaviors of 253 schizophrenics who met the criteria ofthe WHO studies.” As noted by Gottesman, although six percenthad threatened the people’s lives(and a further thirteen percenthad on one or two separate occasions), none had murdered. Atwenty-two percent patient total had been involved with the lawprior, but only for extremely bizarre anti-social behavior whichwas in no way endangering the well-being of the generalpopulation. As to the question of a cure. Do we really need one? Is theproblem of schizophrenia a problem for the individual or is itjust a problem for the society which surrounds the schizophrenicindividual? The answer might be the latter. Now I’m not affirmingthat someone who is ‘deranged’ is enlightened and should dowhatever he wants to. The thing that we have to provide to thepatient is comfort. He has to learn coping mechanisms in order tofunction in the everyday world. We should not force a change inthe patient’s personality which confronts and conflicts with hisindividuality. In the past, with the advent of such harmfulmeasures which all claimed to be the ‘wonder cure’, like thesedative drugs of the 1950’s, or more bluntly and to the point,the lobotomy and electric shock therapy, have been used byspecialists in the hope of improving the patient’s lifestyle yetto no avail. The results have often been dreadful(we know all towell of what happened to Caroline Kennedy and the Jack Nicholsoncharacter in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”). The civilliberty of the individual must be paramount. What boggles my mindis the necessity of the majority to make everything differentthe same, in of all places, a democracy. The condition ofschizophrenia symptoms are for the most part as follows: “The Schizophrenic Five” 1. hallucinations 2. indifference 3. withdrawal from others, i.e. ‘excessive’individuality(hereby known as “The Steppenwolf Syndrome”) 4. hearing voices 5. delusional states(of both omnipotence and grandeur)As a simple reading of the above can attest, the only possiblethreat the schizophrenia can pose is one to himself. Nothingmore. It is not a societal concern – nor an institutional one. Foremost, the schizophrenia should not be placed into somebureaucratically-run institution. Don’t ever let the white wallsand the linoleum floors in those places fool you. This’dignified’ asylum concept of Dorothea Dix is a proven failure(asthe in-class documentary so vividly pictured) and is in principleno better than the prison-dungeon ‘hospital’ of long past.Scizophrenes are shipped there because the bourgeoisie couldn’tstand the condition(a case can be made that this procedure is ain fact a subtle form of eugenics). For all intents andpurposes, they wanted to get rid of what they viewed as a’problem’ as soon as possible. And the asylum was the medical establishment’s quick-fix solution for the public’s uneasiness about insanity in general. There they pumped pills(another quick-fix solution) and electrocuted their victims… patients, maintaining them like animals in a zoo. DISCUSSION We know very little about schizophrenia insofar as someuniversal Aristotelian definition or outline. I can think ofnothing other than an analyst for the treatment of theschizophrenia. Research is doomed to fail, no matter howtemporally extended it is or how solid the control of procedure. There are no symptomatic treatments for the patients. We cannotgive them an aspirin and the fever will go away. The condition ofschizophrenia is more along the lines of problems like obesity orthe common cold. We all have a tendency to gain weight or get acold if we are interacting in a conflicting manner with outsideelements. The human body has such biological propensities asdefensive mechanisms. The symptoms are reactions to an unhealthyenvironment or way of life brought about by outside elements thatman might not be able to handle, neither psychologically ormentally. But just as the human has the propensity forschizophrenia, it also has the propensity of getting rid of it,or at least, putting into submission. This resolution couldhopefully be attained by a change of environment and anexamination of that patients particular symptoms of psychosis. And the specialists must focus on the particulars. It doesn’tmake sense to treat every patient alike. The only way we couldtake this universal course is if schizophrenia had a scientificbasis, some sort of genetic link. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. Gottesman, Irving I., W.H. Freeman and Company, c. 1991.