Schizophrenia is Not Split Personality; So Then, What is It?

You'd think after all this time, people would finally get it straight: Schizophrenia is NOT split personality. This myth just keeps persisting with no end.

"Schiz" is German for "split." So yes, the prefix indeed refers to split. But guess what. "Phrenia" refers to mind, not personality. Schizophrenia means splitting of the mind.

Well, isn't this the same as splitting up of a personality into several personalities? No sir. The "splitting" in schizophrenia is actually disintegration. It's just that "split" is an easier word to translate, perhaps. But schizophrenia truly means disintegration of the mind-the various components of the mind: emotion, logic, communication, perception, etc.

In a healthy brain, these components are all integrated. For example, you cry (emotions) at a very sad event (perception), such as a funeral. Your emotions are integrated with your perception of the world.

A schizophrenic, however, might start giggling at a funeral. The emotion (joy) is disintegrated from the perception. As you can see, this has nothing to do with alter-egos. Classic signs of schizophrenia are incoherent thought processes, which may manifest themselves in the form of incoherent or tangential speech. Lack of emotion is also a common symptom, as well as inappropriate emotion.

Paranoia is not always a symptom. There are different kind of schizophrenias, and the paranoid type is but one. Schizophrenics also frequently experience delusions (believing, for example, that they have written hundreds of bestselling novels; or that mold is growing inside their bodies and is slowly killing them), as well as hallucinations.

What about the classic case of the schizophrenic who believes he's Tiger Woods or Elvis Presley or Madonna? Some people think this is split personality. But think a little more, here. Suppose Jane Smith thinks she's Paris Hilton. In a split personality (technically known as multiple personality disorder-MPD), the person actually really does have alter-egos.

In the case of Jane Smith, she is not Paris Hilton. She only thinks she is. This is not MPD or an alter-ego. It is a delusion of grandeur.