Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist, wrote in 1913 that the causes of schizophrenia were “wrapped in impenetrable darkness.” He outlined the symptoms that still characterize the disorder, including delusions, hallucinations and disorganized thinking. Kraepelin used a different term—“dementia praecox”—that reflected his belief in the disease's unremitting downward course (dementia) and its early onset (praecox).

Today we no longer embrace either dementia or praecox as components of schizophrenia, but the impenetrable darkness he described still lingers. Schizophrenia's causes and mechanisms remain poorly understood, and the most common treatments do little to restore patients to health. Between 70 and 80 percent of individuals who have schizophrenia are unemployed at any given time, and the vast majority of these sufferers will remain dependent on disability insurance throughout the course of life. The cost of the disorder to society, in terms of lost wages and lifelong medical care, is on the order of billions of dollars. And for the approximately 1 percent of the population that struggles with the disorder and their families, the effects can be devastating.

This article was originally published with the title A Social Salve for Schizophrenia.

4 Comments

1. 1. ACF3000 04:37 PM 4/10/13

   Rank and status. Rank and status are the key to understanding mental illness.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. bucketofsquid in reply to ACF3000 04:46 PM 4/11/13

   I suppose if you lived in the 1600s you may be correct. We don't so you are pretty clearly wrong. Rank and status have nothing at all to do with mental illness.
   
   I've made friends with a couple of schizophrenics and it has always been a fairly high stress situation because the normal connections and understandings seem to be tenuous or non-existent. They try hard to relate and communicate but they are on such a different wavelength that what is obvious to them is bewildering to others and what is obvious to others is bewildering to them. It seems particularly hard for them because like most people they want to be part of a group. Sadly they have the same issues with each other as they do with non-schizophrenics.
   
   I've lost touch with both of them. One without warning just disappeared and since I'm not family I couldn't find out where he went. The other told me the city had turned against him so he was heading to another city where he thought people would be more tolerant like I, myself am and thus would accept him. That was 3 years ago and not a word from him since.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. jgrosay 06:50 PM 4/11/13

   Dementia means impairment in the upper functions of CNS, such as reasoning, associations, memory, and the term is the same as for "Alzheimer Type Dementia", because the course of disease in the times were the diagnosis "Dementia precox" was coined included an important intellect deterioration, that in other Dementias took place at an age much later in life. Some say "If you treat somebody as an schizophrenic, he or she will finally become schizophrenic", it's some kind of a self-fulfilled prophecy, and there are authors that signal things such as the connections between "Schizophrenia and Social Pressure", but equal as in some places, if a person engages in adultery, they can receive some kind of "Group therapy", in other places the same inadequate action is given death penalty.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

4. 4. ACF3000 in reply to bucketofsquid 02:21 AM 4/12/13

   When schizophrenics suffer from low rank/ status (what made the ill in the first place), they separate from the group to find or found another one. That's the function of schizophrenia.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this