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firemonkey
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27 Mar 2015, 6:28 am

It is argued that no publicity is bad publicity when it comes to raising awareness of an issue. But recent portrayals on people living with schizophrenia cast some doubt on this theory. The Voices, a black comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, currently in cinemas, has drawn fierce criticism from mental health campaigners. The movie portrays a murderer who is instructed to kill by the voices in his head, more specifically his talking cat. This film joins a long line of inaccurate and misleading film portrayals – who can forget Alphabet Killer; The Butcher Boy; Me, Myself and Irene; or Psychosomatic to name but a few?

At the same time as this film airs in our multiplexes, the BBC is broadcasting the latest documentary from Louis Theroux – the second part of a two-part programme airs on Sunday. It explores life in an Ohio state psychiatric hospital, where inmates have been declared innocent of crimes by reason of insanity and are being held until declared safe both to themselves and wider society. One of Theroux’s main subjects, Jonathan, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, killed his father. Another, Judith, who is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, refuses to acknowledge that she stabbed a woman on a bus.

Theroux approaches the subject matter with his known warmth, finding humour where he can. In doing so he raises important questions about the incarceration of people with mental health problems and the impact of potential over medicalisation. But he also by default reinforces the stereotype that people with schizophrenia are dangerous.

I don’t believe in censorship. There is clearly space for such documentaries, and albeit less clearly films like The Voices – but there also needs to be a reality check: a recent study of more than 40 films released between 1990 and 2010 found that over 80% of main characters with a diagnosis of schizophrenia displayed violent behaviour and nearly a third engaged in homicidal behaviour. Let’s put this in context, schizophrenia may not be regarded as a common diagnosis, but there are approximately 220,000 of us in the UK living with it; if a third of us really were killers, that’s a body count Quentin Tarantino would be proud of.

http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-n ... is-theroux



Ettina
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27 Mar 2015, 6:28 pm

Yeah, schizophrenia gets a bad rap in fiction. I think it's because people are freaked out by how unpredictable a person's behavior can be when they are reacting to things you can't perceive.



beneficii
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28 Mar 2015, 9:22 am

Ettina wrote:
Yeah, schizophrenia gets a bad rap in fiction. I think it's because people are freaked out by how unpredictable a person's behavior can be when they are reacting to things you can't perceive.


But a lot of people don't even understand it, along with psychosis in general. For example, the adjective psychotic is often substituted for psychopathic. People think schizophrenia means split personality.


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Fnord
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28 Mar 2015, 10:06 am

Another question to ask is, "How might schizophrenia be portrayed positively on the screen?"

Figure out the answer to that question, and you will have a better answer for the question, "Why is schizophrenia portrayed so negatively on screen?"

Are there any positive aspects to schizophrenia? if so, then what are they?



beneficii
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28 Mar 2015, 10:41 am

Fnord wrote:
Another question to ask is, "How might schizophrenia be portrayed positively on the screen?"

Figure out the answer to that question, and you will have a better answer for the question, "Why is schizophrenia portrayed so negatively on screen?"

Are there any positive aspects to schizophrenia? if so, then what are they?


Perhaps the novel experience? There are times when I'm downright nostalgic for the psychotic episode I had at 14. I truly believed I was getting ready to become super-powerful, and I was awed by the fact that magic was real.

Since I've joined the skeptic movement, things seem a lot more boring. Prior to that, I was pretty schizotypal with my beliefs, joining together and switching between all sorts of beliefs: fortune-telling, astrology, Wicca, fundamentalist Christianity, the belief 2012 was going to be the Apocalypse, and the infamous (in my mind) Vault-Co (see vault-co.blogspot.com). Maybe because things seem more boring, my life has gotten more stressful, and that contributed to falling apart mentally nearly a year ago, to the point where I could no longer work.


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MollyTroubletail
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28 Mar 2015, 10:56 am

It's portrayed negatively because it's easy to use "schizophrenic" to scare people in horror stories. It's a handy explanation for any sort of antisocial and illegal behavior. A horror movie's villain is always either psychotic, or has died and come back as a foul undead creature. Corpses and psychotic people scare the **** out of most people.



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28 Mar 2015, 12:01 pm

I'll rephrase my question.

Are there any objectively-known positive aspects to schizophrenia?



beneficii
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28 Mar 2015, 12:52 pm

Fnord wrote:
I'll rephrase my question.

Are there any objectively-known positive aspects to schizophrenia?


Probably none from the full-blown disease. Nevertheless, the mild end of the schizophrenia spectrum, which unfortunately does make you more vulnerable to developing schizophrenia (though after your 20s vulnerability seems to decline with age), can make you more likely to develop creative and lateral thinking (thanks to two of the four traits being unusual experiences and cognitive disorganization; there are actually positive ways to apply these traits). Think of Einstein. Even though a lot of people have put him on the autism spectrum, I think that his way of thinking was more on the schizophrenia spectrum; in addition, one major thing suggests he did have at least have some of the genes that may cause schizophrenia: his son, who was a musician, developed schizophrenia; he recognized the schizophrenia coming on thanks to the fact he was studying to become a psychiatrist and was put in more or less permanent care once the full-blown disease came on.

The schizophrenia spectrum is kinda like nature taking a risk with a person in order to try to make them outstanding.

EDIT: Read up on the concept of schizotypy.


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mr_bigmouth_502
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28 Mar 2015, 1:17 pm

Well, the guy who developed TempleOS has schizophrenia. It took him 10 years to do it, but I think it's pretty amazing that someone managed to write an entire OS, and applications for it even, all by themselves.


Of course, as far as portraying himself positively, I don't think the programmer behind this project is doing a very good job...



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28 Mar 2015, 1:44 pm

beneficii wrote:
Fnord wrote:
... Are there any objectively-known positive aspects to schizophrenia?
Probably none from the full-blown disease. Nevertheless, the mild end of the schizophrenia spectrum, which unfortunately does make you more vulnerable to developing schizophrenia (though after your 20s vulnerability seems to decline with age), can make you more likely to develop creative and lateral thinking (thanks to two of the four traits being unusual experiences and cognitive disorganization; there are actually positive ways to apply these traits). Think of Einstein. Even though a lot of people have put him on the autism spectrum, I think that his way of thinking was more on the schizophrenia spectrum; in addition, one major thing suggests he did have at least have some of the genes that may cause schizophrenia: his son, who was a musician, developed schizophrenia; he recognized the schizophrenia coming on thanks to the fact he was studying to become a psychiatrist and was put in more or less permanent care once the full-blown disease came on. The schizophrenia spectrum is kinda like nature taking a risk with a person in order to try to make them outstanding. Read up on the concept of schizotypy.
Now, THAT is the kind of answer I've been looking for! Thanks!

:D



beneficii
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29 Mar 2015, 1:14 am

Fnord wrote:
beneficii wrote:
Fnord wrote:
... Are there any objectively-known positive aspects to schizophrenia?
Probably none from the full-blown disease. Nevertheless, the mild end of the schizophrenia spectrum, which unfortunately does make you more vulnerable to developing schizophrenia (though after your 20s vulnerability seems to decline with age), can make you more likely to develop creative and lateral thinking (thanks to two of the four traits being unusual experiences and cognitive disorganization; there are actually positive ways to apply these traits). Think of Einstein. Even though a lot of people have put him on the autism spectrum, I think that his way of thinking was more on the schizophrenia spectrum; in addition, one major thing suggests he did have at least have some of the genes that may cause schizophrenia: his son, who was a musician, developed schizophrenia; he recognized the schizophrenia coming on thanks to the fact he was studying to become a psychiatrist and was put in more or less permanent care once the full-blown disease came on. The schizophrenia spectrum is kinda like nature taking a risk with a person in order to try to make them outstanding. Read up on the concept of schizotypy.
Now, THAT is the kind of answer I've been looking for! Thanks!

:D


No problem. :)


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RhodyStruggle
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29 Mar 2015, 10:28 pm

Sci-fi author Larry Niven's portrayals of schizophrenic characters are the most positive I'm aware of. He posits a planetary defense / police organization which recruits brilliant "schizes". The idea being, analysts who aren't in touch with reality will see relationships that sane analysts will miss, paranoids will ferret out threats that well-adjusted people will dismiss out of hand, etc. And at the same time, these folks are potentially dangerous, so recruiting them is a way of maintaining surveillance on them. Though the abilities of the insane are so highly valued that some naturally-sane agents are given medications to induce paranoia while on-duty.

However as far as I'm aware, screen adaptations of Mr. Niven's work are limited to one episode of the Star Trek Animated Series from the 1970's. And actually, one of the main characters from the source story did suffer from mental illness; a manic-depressive Pierson's Puppeteer (which is the sort of creature that is depicted in my avatar picture) who went by the name Nessus. But in the Star Trek adaptation put Spock in the role of Nessus, and the mental illness angle was dropped.


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heavenlyabyss
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30 Mar 2015, 10:51 pm

It would be interesting to see more people with schizophrenia in supporting reals just sort of as an on/the/side thing.

Schizophrenia is always made out to be this huge big deal in movies when in fact it's relatively common. If you passed by 100 people on the street or at work today you probably passed by someone with schizophrenia



Ettina
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31 Mar 2015, 9:04 am

Fnord wrote:
Another question to ask is, "How might schizophrenia be portrayed positively on the screen?"


A Beautiful Mind is a positive portrayal of schizophrenia. Not entirely accurate, but more so than most negative portrayals at least.



Alienhybrid
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02 Apr 2015, 4:35 am

its a long scary word good for frightening children