M-15 - Logical thinking and Schizophrenia

[Tane]

I sometimes have difficulty differentiating between the delusional sides of psychosis, as logical thinking is in a way a form of learning but also in some people have the same symptoms as someone who acts delusional. For example thinking out loud to solve a problem is an internal conversation being projected out externally to the world.

So what is schizophrenia and how do you perceive such patients in today’s society?

Is there any difference between a Schizophrenic hearing voices and someone who is say thinking through out loud a logical problem?

Could hearing voices be a possible extensional problem to the way logical thinking is achieved in the average person?

[Midnightsfire]

I sometimes have difficulty differentiating between the delusional sides of psychosis, as logical thinking is in a way a form of learning but also in some people have the same symptoms as someone who acts delusional. For example thinking out loud to solve a problem is an internal conversation being projected out externally to the world.

So what is schizophrenia and how do you perceive such patients in today’s society?

Is there any difference between a Schizophrenic hearing voices and someone who is say thinking through out loud a logical problem?

Could hearing voices be a possible extensional problem to the way logical thinking is achieved in the average person?
You're thinking of two very different things.

schizophrenia (http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/s/s0136000.html)

Any of a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and accompanied in varying degrees by other emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disturbances. Schizophrenia is associated with dopamine imbalances in the brain and defects of the frontal lobe and is caused by genetic, other biological, and psychosocial factors.

A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities.

Thinking out loud sometimes helps a person organize one's thoughts and to help put into words what a person might have difficulty in doing so in the silence of his or her own mind.

Of course, if one starts arguing with his or herself, then...we have a problem that just went mental.

[JofpGallagher]

Good points Midnightsfire. An schizoid is also a person who has two or more "inner" person, all of them irreal. The big problem in these type of people appears when the real person clashes with one or more of those inner personalities. Those inner persons have their own "reality" and their own personality, and normally they live separate lives. When the reality of one of those inner persons clashes with the "real" person, then confusion emerges and the person does not want to believe their "reality" simply because it's not what they "imagine". It could be very complex. Sometimes a schizoid may look "normal" to the eyes of others. For example Heinrich Himmler (Very important Hitler's general) and a very religious person is considered schizophrenic since he acted most of the time with one of those "inner" personalities he had to do what he considered righteous when in reality was atrocious. He was crazy (like Hitler).

Now, regarding to talk with one self or hearing "voices". Well, I hear myself, and I talk with myself but, as MF stated, just as a helper to organize ideas. It's like taking a self inflicted "dictate" of the things I have to do. That's no wrong, and it's pretty much normal. Now, if the voices someone hears are different to our own voice, then I would say that something it's wrong. And if you answer or talk with that unkown voice, then, definitely, something may be wrong :p

[thinkpink38]

I thought schizophrena, along with hearing the voices, images are seen aswell. Like in A Beautiful Mind, john heard voices but to every voice there was a face. So, a scizophrenic, thinks he/she is talking to someone, which in reality, does not exist.

[Angora]

I agree that we class too many things as disorders, but Schizophrenia is one of the ones that is a relatively solid disorder. It seems to have a biological basis, or at least biological consequences because brain imaging often shows drastic differences between a Schizophrenic and a non-Schizophrenic.

Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder. It is not Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality disorder). Schizophrenics come in different categories presenting different sets of symptoms ranging from delusions and hallucinations all the way to a catatonic state. There are too many different symptoms to get into, but there are a lot to choose from depending on the type of Schizophrenia present.

Interestingly, new studies are showing that a significant number of teenagers may experience Schizophrenic symptoms very briefly as their brain chemistry changes.

But unlike thinking out loud like most of us do at some point, Schizophrenia is a really debilitating, frightening experience for a person. The "voices" (auditory hallucinations) generally aren't there to carry on a conversation and have a good time.

With DID (dissociative identity) the person also doesn't carry on a conversation with his/her alternate personality. The person, outside of being told that he has an alternate personality, would never be aware of that fact. But there's some disagreement about whether anyone actually has DID, or whether people (purposely or accidentally) pretend that they do in order to kind of split up different aspects of their personality as a coping mechanism, or things like that. But it's not a form of Schizophrenia.

EDIT: Actually, going back and looking at the title of the thread, it's a little ironic since thinking logically is exactly what Schizophrenics have trouble doing, on account of delusions, and paranoia and disorganized speach and thought patterns, and so on.

[Tane]

So if a person talks to him or herself about something and imitates say someone else’s voice while trying to think things through that is still normal. I know someone who listens to there own voice but also imitates a second voice that is not of there own. Sometimes not often the second voice has been know to talk to a third voice but the person who created the second voice can never hear a response and sometimes responds instead of the third person.

The way this is put down is a little confusion but is that a dissociated state or a non-dissociated state.

I thought schizophrenia, along with hearing the voices, images are seen as well. Like in A Beautiful Mind, john heard voices but to every voice there was a face. So, a schizophrenic, thinks he/she is talking to someone, which in reality, does not exist.

No person suffering from schizophrenia does not need to see images or in some cases even hear voices, they could simply just have the movement hindered in a way and contain some of the other paranoid thoughts such as people being against them all the time, it does not mean that someone is always telling them that and not all schizophrenics are violent or bad.

[JofpGallagher]

From This Site (http://www.drleons.com/schizo/closet.htm#a)

Schizophrenia is the fourth leading cause of morbidity in both women and men, the second leading cause of international terrorism, and the leading cause of war. Schizophrenia is a humorous brain disorder characterized by delusional thinking and unique but unpopular perceptions. Mental health professionals normally diagnose this illness if, during any one-month period of a person’s life, that person has suffered two or more of the following:

Delusions
Hallucinations
Disorganized speech
Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
Negative symptoms

Leading cause of war and second leading cause of terrorism! that's interesting and it's related with my example about Himmler and Hitler. Both delusional persons with an "Inner" world completely different of the "real" one.

[Tane]

From This Site (http://www.drleons.com/schizo/closet.htm#a)



Leading cause of war and second leading cause of terrorism! that's interesting and it's related with my example about Himmler and Hitler. Both delusional persons with an "Inner" world completely different of the "real" one.

There are different levels of Schizophrenia and only 1% is at this extreme level. 99% are really not that bad and some can be the complete opposite, over kind and easily used. If every schizophrenic were as bad as that then we would have a major problem on our hands because not all are sectioned or need to be. Himmler and Hitler where extremes and to compare every schizophrenic with those is gross misconception or we would be seeing more of there kind than we do even today.

[JofpGallagher]

Himmler and Hitler where extremes and to compare every schizophrenic with those is gross misconception or we would be seeing more of there kind than we do even today.
The Straw Man Fallacy (see this post 497 (http://www.cosforums.com/showpost.php?p=824505&postcount=497))

I never compared "every" no one with no one. I never said all schizoids are like Hitler and Himmler. I never said there are not kind schizophrenics.

I simply provided two examples. Don't get me wrong.

[Tane]

The Straw Man Fallacy (see this post 497 (http://www.cosforums.com/showpost.php?p=824505&postcount=497))

I never compared "every" no one with no one. I never said all schizoids are like Hitler and Himmler. I never said there are not kind schizophrenics.

I simply provided two examples. Don't get me wrong.

I see your point, I miss-interpreted what was stated and The Straw Man Fallacy is interesting.

So could the first part of The Straw Man Fallacy be a representation of how a schizophrenic might experience. That is:

Examples of Straw Man

1. Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000."
Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"
Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."
Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."
Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

Which is an application of:

Description of Straw Man

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

So could The Straw Man hypothesis be applied to say the person below:

So if a person talks to him or herself about something and imitates say someone else’s voice while trying to think things through that is still normal. I know someone who listens to there own voice but also imitates a second voice that is not of there own. Sometimes not often the second voice has been know to talk to a third voice but the person who created the second voice can never hear a response and sometimes responds instead of the third person.

You see there is no person C heard by person A but person A can hear person B talking to a person C. Hence person B and perhaps person C are ignoring person A because they percieve there theory as false/incorrect or flawed.

[Angora]

What makes you think Hitler was schizophrenic? I've heard a report that he had characteristics that boardered on schizophrenia, and that there was a fear that if things went horribly wrong for him the stress would push him over the edge into becomming schizophrenic - and there's a theory that whether or not someone at risk for developing schizophrenia will or not depends on stress. I've heard that he displayed signs of possibly having syphilis - I think everyon'e heard that story - but I've never heard that he was schizophrenic. Unless you're talking about a different Hitler.

As far as that article... I wouldn't take it too seriously. He says a lot of things there that are obviously very tongue-in-cheek or kind of sarcastic but gross exaggerations. I don't know if the claim about war and terrorism is true, but I wouldn't take his word for it alone.

The way this is put down is a little confusion but is that a dissociated state or a non-dissociated state.

I've looked it up just to make sure. It's complicated, but this is what I came up with: In DID the identities have control over the person at different times. Meaning, they're not present at the same time to talk to each other - although it's suggested that in certain instances one of them might induce auditory hallucinations on the others... and, I won't even try to touch that. I don't know enough.

But they wouldn't carry on a conversation, and certainly not out loud. And the switching back and forth would probably not be rapid enough to give the appearance of a conversation. The host identity (the one that dominates and shows up most often) may or may not be the origional identity and there's at least one other identity going on (and there are certain patterns and so on to what characteristics the other identities tend to assume).

Apparantly, some of the identities remember things that happened to some of the other identities, and some of them don't (which is the part that really gets me).

[JofpGallagher]

OK...I am out of this thread. Have a nice debate.

[rotsiepots]

Hitler probably had a personality disorder, but I doubt he was schizophrenic. He didn't appear to display any examples of flat affect, paranoia (unreasonable paranoia, that is), a "disorganised mind", and delusions or hallucinations.

Having a conversation with yourself is not schizophrenia.

Individuals with mental illnesses are poorly represented in modern society. Mental illness is still taboo and until we change society's perceptions individuals suffering from such illnesses will remain marginal.

[Nick]

Talking aloud affects the mind in a way which thinking cannot possibly hope to achieve.

Thinking does very little to your mind. If you want to reinforce something, say it aloud, or write it down. Repeatedly. Thinking just don't cut it.

In psych sessions they get you to chant positive affirmations to make you feel better about yourself. Simply thinking these things won't do anything. You have to actually say them to get them to make a difference.

Thinking, amazing as it sounds, is almost completely worthless.

Not entirely addressing the thread, but still an interesting factoid. Which explains why I often repeat things to myself.

[Marina]

Has anyone read Fear Street: Fear Hall by R.L Stine? This main character (I think Angel or something. Maybe Mandy :shrug: ) seems to have three friends, but we find out in the second out of two in the Fear Hall series that they were all imaginary, but to this charachter they seem as real as you and I. Then you know why the 3 M's (Mary, Melanie and someone else) seemed so 'snobby'. Could that be a case of schizophrenia? Even though it's fiction.

[Tane]

In my opinion one of the best cases of schizophrenia and what a person with such an illness can do for society is that of John Nash. If it was not for his 'Nash Equilibrium' in economics the stock market would never have really got off the ground.

The Nobel Prize commission decided not to give Nash his prize as at first they where afraid of how it would look if he was to have one of his episodes so it was delayed until 1994 where he finally was awarded the prize. I feel the stigma should not have prevented Nash from being awarded such an award as it should not matter about the illness though saying that he was given more than most schizophrenics in life and actually got through it, eventually he began to lecture back at Princeton University.