Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia misconceptions:

- schizophrenia is NOT a split personality disorder

- nor is it a multiple personality disorder

- violence is not a major side effect of schizophrenia- this is a mis conception demonstrated by the media. 

For example Deifenbach (1997) found violence was 10 x more likely to be shown in someone who is mentally ill. However only 8% of schizophrenics will commit an act of violence in a year, which is significantly less compared to other disorders such as depression and mood disorders.  

what is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder in which an individuals cognition is disrupted, along with their emotions. However this does not mean they continously display psychotic displays of irrational behaviour or have ever changing emotions - it just means they are more vulnerable to displaying such behaviour in comparison with other individuals without schizophrenia. 

This can be seen in ' a beautiful…