On the occasion of mental health information week, AlloCiné met with psychiatrist Jean-Victor Blanc to correct the representations that fiction can give of schizophrenia.
– For more information on Mental Health Week, visit fr.webedia-group.com
Cinema has always been wrong. And us too. Schizophrenia is not Fight Club, Split, Black Swan or Shutter Island. On the occasion of Mental Health Information Week, we asked Jean-Victor Blanc, psychiatrist and mental health expert for Dr Good and Culture Pop & Psy, to enlighten us on this very disorder – and even too often misrepresented on screen. Encounter.
AlloCiné: How to define schizophrenia?
Jean-Victor Blanc: Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that affects approximately 1 to 2% of the population. It’s pretty much like bipolar disorder. It is a pathology which will have several types of symptoms which, overall, will reflect a loss of psychological integrity. This means that we will have emotions that will be inconsistent with ideas or behaviors. And this will be expressed by several types of symptoms
What are the different types of symptoms?
There are productive symptoms, notably hallucinations but also delusional ideas, often with persecutory tones, that is to say that the person may have the impression that someone wishes them harm.
Besides that, there are so-called negative symptoms which will mark a certain withdrawal: withdrawal from emotional life, withdrawal from social life, and difficulties in getting in touch with those around you.
Finally, the third type, the symptoms of disorganization or dissociative, which will precisely mark this disconnection between emotions and ideas. For example, laughing while thinking about something sad or behaving inappropriately in the context.
Where does fiction go wrong in the representations made of schizophrenia?
Very often, on screen, we see schizophrenia represented as a violent disorder, people who are going to be dangerous. For example, we will have a character who will take medication, who suddenly stops them and becomes a murderous madman like what we see in Joker. All of this is obviously false.
We know that people with schizophrenia are more often victims of violence rather than perpetrators of crime and violence. We also know that less than 5% of crimes are committed by people affected by a schizophrenic disorder.
What we rarely see in movies is what we call recovery. That is to say, you can live with a schizophrenic disorder and be balanced, manage to have a social life, have a job, sometimes in a protected environment, but sometimes in an ordinary environment.
We also confuse schizophrenia and split personality…
Yes, very often schizophrenia is confused with dissociative identity disorder. The fact of having several personalities is what we see for example in Fous d’Irène which is very funny but unfortunately not at all fair and completely off the mark in terms of representation of schizophrenia.
What advice would you give to people reading this?
My advice, when you watch a film or series that talks about schizophrenia, is to find out: is it ultimately a fair picture or not? Because we know that seeing films that will be stigmatizing can increase the stigmatization of mental disorders and therefore of schizophrenia.
And if you have any questions, do not hesitate to speak first to your doctor who can, if necessary, refer you to a psychiatrist to determine whether you need specific help or not. Finally, there are associations like schizo oui, like Positive Minders or even UNAFAM, whose vocation is to help those around them to live better with this disorder.
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