Schizophrenia has been renamed in Japan, but it may take more than
a new word to improve public perception of this debilitating
disease.
The Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology (JSPN) has
formally changed seishi buntetsu byo, or "split-mind disorder," to togo
schicco sho, or "loss-of-coordination disorder." The change was announced
at the World Congress of Psychiatry in Yokohoma in August.
"This term has a softer connotation," says Yoshiharu Kim, M.D.,
director of Adult Mental Health at Japan's National Institute of Mental
Health in Chiba.
In Japan, schizophrenia is written with the ideographs for "split"
and "mind." The term was appropriated from the German word schizophrenie
in 1937. Although the definition mirrors the Greek roots that make up the
English and German word, experts say the term is more negative in Japan.
The ideograph clearly denotes "split," (an implication lost on Westerners
not familiar with Greek). And the word "split" is especially stigmatizing
in Japanese culture, which emphasizes self-control at all costs.
The stigma surrounding schizophrenia is so severe that
psychiatrists are reluctant to diagnose the disorder and patients go
untreated. In a study of five national hospitals, Kim found that only 17
percent of schizophrenics and 34 percent of their relatives were aware of
the actual diagnosis.
It will take more than a new ideograph to alleviate such stigma,
especially when the disease's clinical definition remains the same,
according to Kim, who is also secretary of the JSPN committee in charge
of renaming the disorder.
"The new term is a retranslation of 'schizophrenia' into the
Japanese language and does not make any substantial change in the
original concept of the illness," says Kim. After a nine-year battle, a
change in the clinical definition of schizophrenia was deemed too
difficult; JSPN only decided to rename the condition. Thus, schizophrenia
still goes by the 1937 definition that accompanied the term's translation
into Japanese: "untreatable, progressive, poor prognosis with disrupted
personality."
Kim suggests that schizophrenia be renamed worldwide, though
stigmatization is most prevalent in cultures using ideographs. In China
and Korea, the term literally means "catastrophe of mind."
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