Schizophrenia, or the Disease of the "Dissolution of Personality"

Miss Mayy Tawfiq Salman, a specialist in the psychological sciences from the American College of Beirut, presents this study of a mental illness with which our readers would do well to become acquainted...

Have we ever paused a moment to ask ourselves about the millions of human beings in this universe who live in a world of fantasy and spend most of their time in the pursuit of unreal things!! Those are they who have been stricken with a mental illness that is among the most widespread of mental illnesses, the gravest, the most destructive of personality, and the least responsive to treatment. Its name is schizophrenia, or fusam (in the Arabic language). This illness most often makes its appearance in early manhood, and for this reason the German physician named it 'the insanity of adolescence' — although it strikes man at every stage of life. As for Dr. Bleuler, the Swiss, he gave it the name known as schizophrenia, meaning separation of the personality — Splitting of personality — or a disintegration of the personality; that is to say, the patient passes for a period of time through one particular personality, and then at another time passes through another personality that differs entirely from the first. In other words, we may call it 'duality of personality.'

From this disintegration of the personality there generally result contradiction in speech and conduct, avoidance of friends and of people, an abundance of daydreams, and weakness of thought or total incapacity for it. The patient turns to childish occupations in which there is no trace of seriousness — amusing himself, say, with a little plaything, or binding up his hand if he feels a pain in his chest — and other such symptoms which cannot be diagnosed at the outset.

Among its clearer symptoms is separation from the outer world in which he lives, so that he may live in the fantasy world he sets about weaving. The fantasy world rises up as a solid barrier between him and the real world, and it is this barrier that makes the patient imagine that the world around him is made up of enemies who wish to take revenge upon him. So he shrinks into himself, picturing his dazzling triumph over his enemy, and the solving of life's problems by the easiest of ways.

Among the symptoms of this malady, likewise, is the patient's sense of grandeur and of persecution: he hears voices calling him, and fancies that all the people around him wish to lower his dignity or take revenge upon him — even in talking machines he sees this aggression. He may fancy that he is Napoleon or a king, and assure you that he has seized Italy and Russia and many other lands. These delusions are, for the patient, his real world; he actually hears them and sees them. And often these voices command him to kill his son or his brother, or to undertake some great project by which he intends reform; and this impulse grows so strong within him that he can do nothing but answer the call.

It is not necessary that all these symptoms be gathered in one person; moreover, every patient has intervals of clarity in which you would suppose him sound in thought and in mind.

And here we stop to ask about the causes of this grave mental illness??! The hereditary factor plays an important role in the transmission of the disease. Nor is there any doubt that upbringing, early environment, traditions, and the experiences of life in childhood have a great effect upon the incidence of this disease... He who has not been trained to bear difficulties and to surmount them, and who has not been accustomed to self-reliance and self-confidence, is more susceptible than others to falling prey to it.