The Christian Approach to Schizophrenia
(Originally published in The Construction of Madness: Emerging Conceptions and Interventions into the Psychotic Process. University of Maine, 1976.)
The word “schizophrenia” has become a non-specific wastebasket term covering a multitude of problems (and often covering up a vast amount of ignorance) that have but one common denominator: the inability of the counselee to function meaningfully in society because of bizarre behavior. It seems to me that we must abandon the word as misleading and confusing, particularly when its use provides such a convenient temptation for diagnostic abuse. Add to all of the other possible factors that might be mentioned the hopelessness generated by labels, the tendency of many counselees to play the role they think the label implies, the irreparable damage that cavalier use of this label by careless, irresponsible, overworked, or even malicious parties can have upon a client’s future, and you have an almost airtight case for rejection of the term. Whenever the word “schizophrenia” appears I shall be referring not to any definable, diagnostic category representing a specific illness or behavior. Rather, I shall view it solely as a broad, collective term having no one clear-cut referent, but rather pointing to
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