Hi Etherfish:
What did you do? Did you say anything to her about the previous “luncheon”? I’ve never heard of that happening before.
Is there a term for that condition?
Guy
The problem with pointing out the lapse or other sorts of weirdness is that a schizophrenic will never say, “Oh, that darn disease!”. Because the disease exists at the very point of identity and objectivity. Instead, if you do manage to convince them that they’ve done something weird or are experiencing delusion or acting out of delusional information, it will affect their deepest self image, and they will lash out at you and/or themselves. Even if they understand schizophrenia - even if they’re a trained and talented psychologist! - they will not put the blocks in the proper place and truly understand that “I am a worthy person afflicted with a disease which just made me do something weird or take an improper course of thought or action.” You never ever reach that conclusion. Perhaps you parrot the words, but you don’t believe it.
Anyway, I’m hoping my case is getting more persuasive for urging great hesitation before launching a schizophrenic on a course requriing adherence to the council of an inner guru.
I agree, that’s why I was advocating the mothering approach, or better yet just being their friend. I was working at Goodwill, where most of the employees were mentally ill, and some physically handicapped too. Often the two go together.
The girl was known to lash out at people with not much provocation, so I didn’t want to bring up the subject of her leaving in the middle of a sentence. I found with most of the people there, that the best approach was to just be friendly. I would talk to them the same as I would to anyone else, starting with small talk, and slowly progress to see how much deeper they would go. Then you can find certain subjects they are interested in, and go from there. You find that they are not that different from supposedly “normal” people, but just have trouble in areas that affect their interaction with society. “Normal” people have just as many problems, but are able to interact. If you are condescending, or talk “down” to them in any way, they may not react, but they know it on some level. So you treat them like equals, and you find out they ARE equals, but society doesn’t understand them. They just have trouble interacting in normal ways because society determines what is “normal”, and the rules are mostly arbitrary.