Definition of "schizophrenia" []

• Any of a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and accompanied in varying degrees by other emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disturbances. Schizophrenia is associated with dopamine imbalances in the brain and may have an underlying genetic cause. (noun)
• A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities: the national schizophrenia that results from carrying out an unpopular war. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Thirty years ago, the term schizophrenia was a catchall phrase to diagnose all manner of aberrant behavior."
• "However, we are using the term schizophrenia colloquially so as to not muddy our political-philosophical analysis with clinical analysis, a topic on which neither authors are literate."
• "But back to your conscience; I know that psychiatrists used to use the term schizophrenia to describe a variety of mental conditions that didn't have any other definable title or description, so I wonder if perhaps you have been diagnosed as a sociopath in a similar way because the doctor had a bit of trouble pinpointing what was exactly the problem."