A solution to the renaming of schizophrenia: Latinise it

I've been handwriting a bit of an essay about the use of language. Resorting back to handwritten notes is something that's been forced by the smashing of my laptop but it's a useful return to a pleasure forgotten.

There's a conclusion. Perhaps the old psychiatrists got it right. Latinise the language.

Schizophrenia has been relabelled "integration disorder" (or Togo Shitcho Sho) in Japan for salient reasons however it carries a meaning that people who don't read psychiatric research will take as the sole definition of schizophrenia.

So way back in 1896 when Emil Kraepelin named the schizophrenias in his classification system he chose the latin "dementia praecox". The terms means little to anyone. They'd have to Google it at the very least to find out what it meant. Wiki would tell them it meant premature dementia which isn't quite true but they'd hopefully read the rest of the page.

I understand the reasons why there's a modern movement to rename Bleuler's term schizogruppen that was used in a paper in 1908 and Gruppe der Schizophrenien in a book in 1911 for how he conceptualised the schizophrenias. The concept has little to do with the public interpretations of split or shattered mind but relates to the division of faculties of the mind (rather than the mind itself).

None of the terms relate to the diagnostic criteria itself.

From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Standardized_criteria (referencing the modern American manual).

"

Characteristic symptoms: Two or more of the following, each present for much of the time during a one-month period (or less, if symptoms remitted with treatment).

- Delusions

- Hallucinations

- Disorganized speech, which is a manifestation of formal thought disorder

- Grossly disorganized behavior (e.g. dressing inappropriately, crying frequently) or catatonic behavior

- Negative symptoms: Blunted affect (lack or decline in emotional response), alogia (lack or decline in speech), or avolition (lack or decline in motivation)

If the delusions are judged to be bizarre, or hallucinations consist of hearing one voice participating in a running commentary of the patient's actions or of hearing two or more voices conversing with each other, only that symptom is required above. The speech disorganization criterion is only met if it is severe enough to substantially impair communication.

- Social/occupational dysfunction: For a significant portion of the time since the onset of the disturbance, one or more major areas of functioning such as work, interpersonal relations, or self-care, are markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset.

- Duration: Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least six months. This six-month period must include at least one month of symptoms (or less, if symptoms remitted with treatment).

"

So according to an online Latin translation site the Japanese term could be

"integration incompositus" which means nothing to the lay person.

To the academic there's a more interesting debate that seems to have been ignored in the relabelling debate. There's a response from a medical student on the student British Medical Journal site that goes on about a point I agree with:

"

Unfortunately, changing the name of the condition (or even abolishing the concept) will not affect the root cause of the stigma—the public's ignorance and fear of people with mental illness. Renaming may even have the unintended effect that the person, rather than the illness, is blamed for the symptoms.

"

It's a bit of a ramble. I guess someone like Professor Mary Boyle makes the point more lucidly in Schizophrenia: A scientific delusion? I'm embarassed to say I haven't read it but there's a Google Book preview if you follow the link.