It is estimated that one in 100 people will develop schizophrenia at some point in their lifetime.
But the BBC reports on the eve of World Mental Health Day, experts are calling for the term ‘schizophrenia’ to be scrapped.
Richard Bentall, professor of experimental clinical psychology, from the University of Manchester, said: “…the concept of schizophrenia is scientifically meaningless. It groups together a whole range of different problems under one label – the assumption is that all of these people with all of these different problems have the same brain disease.”
Professor Bentall said: “Overall, I think the concept is scientifically meaningless, clinically unhelpful and ultimately has been damaging to patients.”
Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, says his preference would be to replace the unpleasant term schizophrenia with dopamine dysregulation disorder which more accurately reflects what is happening in the brain when someone is psychotic.”
Was that my brain wiggling?