On Crushing Schizophobia

By Frederick J. Frese III, Ph.D.

Presented at the 8th annual APPP Conference
Yale University
October 17, 2005

As we are experiencing the early years of the third millinium we seem to be observing significant threats to our collective well being. Within the past few years we have been exposed to intense ravaging by mother nature. Here in the US, the gulf coast, including the town of my alma mater, New Orleans, has been devastated by hurricanes and accompanying flooding. The recent earthquake in Pakistan and the Kashmire has killed tens of thousands, and who can forget the devastating tsunami.that engulfed the Indian Ocean area last year causing massive devastation to the peoples of that region.
The AIDS/HIV epidemic continues to ravage entire countries, infecting as much as one third of the population of many African nations.
And from our fellow men, we seem to be experiencing increasing acts of crime and violence. American jails and prisons are overflowing with populations currently exceeding two million. And world-wide, the acts of violence seems unending, as evidenced by the recent tragic terrorist bombings in Madrid, London, Bali, Russia, and the daily attacks in Iraq, not to mention the constant vigilance we keep in anticipation of another Islamo-terrorist attack such as that which we experienced in the heart of this northeast region, the destruction of the World Trade Towers in Manhattan on 9/11/01.
Compared to these concerns, the issue I am addressing today may appear to be relatively minor. But I am suggesting that for those of us with mental illness, particularly serious mental illnesses, mystery, misunderstanding, and the resulting fear of these conditions is a major factor that needs to be addressed.
Irrational fears and phobias have been recognized in the mental illness field from its earliest time .Traditionally recognized phobias are identified with a litany of similarly sounding quaint terms such as acrophobia, agoraphobia, and arachnophobia, just to mention a few “phobia” terms fro the top nfo a long list of traditionally recognized phobias.. More recently we have seen the emergence of the term homo-phobia to refer to and irrational fear of a traditionally misunderstood and ostracized group, homosexuals.
In that schizophrenia has often been called the most mysterious, as well as the most devastating of the serious mental illnesses,
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