Schizo-nomenclature: a new condition?

Abstract

Some psychiatric diagnoses are stigmatic. In August of 2002, at the annual congress of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology, the Society decided to change the name of schizophrenia in Japanese from seishinbunretsu-byo ('split mind disease') to togoshitcho-sho ('loss of coordination disorder'). In 2006 a survey was carried out among the 80 members of the Section on Classification, Diagnostic Assessment and Nomenclature of the World Psychiatric Association. Of the 21 responding, nine (45%) did not think that 'schizophrenia' was an appropriate term for the disease and half thought that the term 'schizophrenia' had a stigmatic meaning.