'schizophrenia'

[Melian]

Plus the important thing is not if Odetta is a clinical schizophrenic, but that the other characters believe she is

I agree with that. i dont remember that part exactly but is king really saying she schizophrenic ? OR he makes the caracther think she is schizophrenic i think there's a big difference, it can mean just that they are unaware of what it is for real, that's it, doesn't mean necessarly that king doesn't know the difference

[paulas98]

Yes, others care. I thought the same thing about the misuse of the term schizophrenia, which is why I finally am commenting here. Sybil was not schizophrenic, either. John Nash was schizophrenic. Calling Odetta/Detta/Susannah schizophrenic upset me at the moment of reading it, but no way could spoil reading The Dark Tower series, 3 times!

[girl@thewindow]

just a question, because eddie bases his "diagnoses" upon his knowledge of sybil... was she diagnosed as a schizophrenic?? maybe this is where the misinformation came from? eddie was from the 80's and i don't remember the term mpd being as prevalent in the public mind as it is now... not making excuses for sai king, just wondering... don't forget, the book was written over twenty years ago...

[btobey]

As a clinical psychologist, may I step in?

The original poster is correct in that the term "schizophrenic" is misused in the book. Unfortunately, the term is misused all of the time in common parlance because (as another poster pointed out) the actual word schizophrenia does mean "split personality." However, a diagnosis of schizophrenia is made ONLY when someone is suffering from either 1) delusions or 2) hallucinations, and so in truth, most of the time when you hear the word used colloquially, it is being used incorrectly.

Given that Odetta/Detta Walker was more that one personality in a single body, her official mental health diagnosis would be Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID (NOT Multiple Personality Disorder; this term was changed several editions ago in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM). Technically, the particular personality of Detta could also be diagnosed with schizophrenia given that she is suffering from delusions, but this would not be the primary diagnosis.

I hope that this clears things up.

[blunthead]

I was taught in nursing school to think of schizophrenia as describing someone whose personality was cracked, "split", broken, not split in the sense that a cell splits into two individual cells, for instance.