SCHIZOPHRENIC WRITERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 667, 18 April 1952, Page 5

SCHIZOPHRENIC WRITERS

Sir,-Mr. Fairburn attempts to indicate what schizophrenia is, and to justify his use of the term. His idea of the nature of schizophrenia is somewhat inaccurate, and his use of the term in describing the Australian writers hardly admissible. Confusion arises as to the nature of schizophrenia because the word means literally a splitting of the personality. The term schizophrenia was first used in the 1880’s by Bleuler, one of the early students of abnormal personality, but subsequent study and research have revealed that the use of the term by Bleuler was most unfortunate, and anything but helpful in understanding the nature of the disease. The descriptive phrase split personality should be confined to phenomena such as dual personality states which Stevenson depicted in Jekyll and Hyde.

schizophrenia is a shattering or dis-integration-not a splitting-of the personality, For many reasons too detailed and technical to be mentioned here, some individuals are unable to use their abilities in order to organise their lives. They are unable to plan long or short term projects, unable to do productive work or do so spasmodically. They may even become unable to carry out the habitual tasks implied in routine work and physical care. The individual's thought processes, too, become illogical and bizarre. Like an army which, having an inadequate administrative centre, is unable to use its potential in man power available, so the individual has abilities which he cannot utilise because the coordinating forces within him are weakened. If we use the term will for this coordinating ability of human beings, and desire for desire on the part of the individual to utilise his abilities, then we can, as Mr. Fairburn says, speak of a conflict between will and desire, and this conflict is generally present in the early stages of schizophrenia. But this is to describe the disease in terms of only one symptom. Enough has been said to indicate that when Mr, Fairburn used the term schizophrenic to describe the Australian writers, he did not mean that -the writ-

ers’ powers of co-ordination were shattered. Rather, he meant that the writers were experiencing a conflict between the European as against the Australian patterns of behaviour, and ways of feeling and thinking. But experiencing this kind of conflict is not in itself schizophrenic, nor need it necessarily lead to schizophrenia. I think that Mr. Fairburn would have been more accurate had he spoken simply of a conflict situation which, as he aptly puts it, leads to "unease of spirit and extreme self-consciousness."

J.

GABRIEL

(Wellington).