Discussing the idea that people with schizophrenia are dangerous.
By Lucie Bourguignon and Tom Lemée
Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder which includes cognitive, behavioral and emotional abnormalities. It affects 0.3% to 0.7% of the population and concerns as many men as women, even if some studies give different rates. This illness finds its source in a complex interaction between environmental, genetic, physiologic and psychologic factors.
Overall, schizophrenia disturbs the link between the individual and the reality. More precisely, it is a highly heterogenous disorder with positive symptoms like hallucinations or delusions and negative symptoms like a lake of motivation and emotional expression. Some authors also classify schizophrenic symptoms into three categories: psychic dissociation (i.e., split of the psychic unity of thought, emotions and behavior), delusion (i.e., perception or judgment conflicting with reality, in which the subject fully believes), and schizophrenic autism (i.e., pathological introversion including a distorsion of the link with reality).
This disorder takes people back to the stereotype of madness. Schizophrenics are considered dangerous because of medias which spread this idea: even if the rate of violence is higher among schizophrenic individuals (10% vs 2-4%), it is mostly movies and a small number of miscellaneous news items that convey the idea that people with schizophrenia are dangerous. Indeed, one in two people think that schizophrenics are dangerous for others. Some authors suppose that humans prefer see in others what they cannot accept for themselves because it allows them to not question if they are normal or not.
In reality, a minority of people with schizophrenia is violent, and this violence appear when the person stop her medication or consume a substance. Moreover, schizophrenics are more often victims than authors of violences. Schizophrenics represent less than 1% of delinquent population. The majority of crimes are perpetuated by “normal“ people who are statistically also violent than schizophrenic individuals. Even if hallucinations and delusions can induce violence, schizophrenics often commit suicide afterwards because of culpability. In fact, contrary to perverts, antisocial individuals or psychopaths, people with schizophrenia can feel guilty about their actions. Moreover, people with schizophrenia are most of time violent against themselves.
In conclusion, schizophrenia is a severe and chronic mental illness which include cognitive, behavioral and emotional impairments. Even if medias are often spreading the idea that people with schizophrenia are dangerous, in reality they are not more violent than “normal“ people but, conversely they are frequently victims of agressions. We must not forget that schizophrenia induce a huge suffering and disability for the individual.
References
American Psychiatric Association (2015). DSM-5 : Manuel diagnostique et statistique des troubles mentaux. Issy-les-Moulineaux : Elsevier Masson
Bindler, L. & Andlauer, O. (2012). La schizophrénie : 100 questions/réponses pour mieux comprendre la schizophrénie. Paris : Ellipses.
Coutanceau, R. (1995). Aspects légaux en psychiatrie en France, in P. Lalonde (dir.), Démystifier les maladies mentales : la schizophrénie. Montréal : Gaëtan Morin.
Granger, B. & Naudin, J. (2015). Les schizophrènes sont dangereux, in La Schizophrénie : idées reçues sur une maladie de l’existence. Paris : Le Cavalier Bleu.
Haouzir, S. & Bernoussi, A. (2014). Les schizophrénies. Paris : Armand Colin.
Words we have learned
- Split → Rupture, fractionnement
- Spread → Répandre, propager
- Miscellaneous news item → Fait divers
- To commit suicide → Se suicider
- Afterwards → Après, ensuite
- A huge suffering → Une immense souffrance