Autism <-----> Schizophrenia (Opposites?)

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Schizophrenia has often been a psychological "dumping ground" - people slap the label on any disorder they don't understand. For a long time, this applied to Autism, but that's changing.

There is a theory that Schizophrenia is the opposite of Autism based on the idea that autistics are hypomentalistic whereas schizophrenia is hepermentalistic: the inability to see intention in others vs excessive focus on intention in others. Rather than seeing social patterns that don't exist (paranoia), we see sensory patterns that "don't exist" (or rather, do not matter to the socially oriented person) - which may lead both to our ability to see visual or logical patterns, as well as sensory integration problems and thus, meltdowns, being unable to make sense of all the info. Because we are sensory driven more than social, our senses can associate more freely on a visceral level, leading also to sensory cross over and unconventional thought patterns - leading either to creativity and gifts such as synesthesia, and/or deficits like the inability to communicate on a social level.

If this model makes sense, I'm wondering if it would mean that Autistics are actually less likely to be Schizophrenic - taking into account that many get diagnosed with schizophrenia, which would (ironically) be due to the very fact that they are the opposite of schizophrenic and their sensory based traits are misinterpreted by socially-oriented people in a social manner - assuming the autism/schizophrenia model works (at some level at least).

Suppose a psychologist asks a patient if they ever hear voices when no one is in the room.

The Schizophrenic says yes, because his socially oriented mind interprets thoughts so vividly that they are interpreted as actual speech. The Autistic person says yes because his sensory oriented mind interprets the question in a technical, literal sense. Yes, sometimes he hears voices because he overhears neighbors or the tv.

The psychologist places a tick mark is placed on the box next to schizophrenic traits when in fact the trait expresses the exact opposite of schizophrenia - the common trait was that they both responded yes, but the autistic person was just focused on accurately communicating his sensory experiences that he missed out on the intent of the question.

The psychologist also checks the box for "unconventional thought patterns". In their conversation, the autistic person has been following a logic based on sensory associations, and so to the socially oriented psychologist, unable to follow the logic of the autistic persons speech, sees it as a dysfunction in coherence or logic.

Anyway, I don't think we get mislabeled as Schizophrenic nowadays, so much as we get mislabeled with other conditions such as bipolar or personality disorders for autistic traits. My point is, if schizophrenia can be understood as the opposite of Autism, it's ironic that someone can be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia because of the very fact that they are actually further away from schizophrenia than the person diagnosing them.

The larger point isn't about Schizophrenia, but about how this illustrates the absurdity of lumping completely opposite conditions together based on having no understanding of the origin of either - therefore, they are defined as being deviant from the norm rather than their distinct and even opposite causes.

heard someone else suggest this on another site. It is possible schizophrenics focus on the intentions of others much more than autistics do. They also understand other's intentions wrong much of the time, which means schizophrenics aren't too great at reading people either, there is often a major loss of social skills involved.

It really depends on how you look at the disorder, as there does seem to be some parts of the brain that are hyperactive but if you ask me they aren't hyper-empathizing. From what I have read about the condition, the rational part of their brain just isn't working properly and so the brain reaches all of these bizarre conclusions without any filter.

I have no idea what schizophrenia is. If someone has split personality disorder, they're called schizophrenic. If someone is paranoid, they're called schizophrenic. If someone hears voices, they're called schizophrenic.

Here's what the dictionary says:

I'm not even trying to be funny, this topic comes up here a lot but I had to check the date on this thread because this thread sounds so familiar.

Even the example you mentioned about a doctor asking an autistic if they hear voices.

I swear I've read this before but I'll chalk it up to lack of sleep.

Articles like this probably cause confusion for those more afflicted with schizophrenia

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17579608

There's "Schizoid personality disorders" which are essentially introversion. Schizophrenia is not always paranoia, but often occurs as a subgroup.

People on the spectrum can have schizophrenia.

Sociopathic personality disorders may be completely opposite to schizophrenia and autism, however.

Example:

Sociopathy includes an excessive sycophancy and often sadism and an utter lack of empathy.

Autism and Schizophrenia include unconventional displays of empathy [not crying with a person, not hugging a person] and an excessive lack of sycophancy.

If I'm not mistaken, Schizophrenia is actually a degenerative disorder, whereas Autism can 'improve' with time [whatever that means/implies].

Really as far as the split personality thing goes, the word schizophrenia translates to "split mind".

It's not really as though most schizophrenic people have a Jekyll and Hyde thing going, it's actually more like autism as in being "split"--spending a lot of time in your own mind versus engaging with the rest of the world.

Basically having an "inner world" that you consider to be more real that the outer world.

^

People think I'm argumentative on occasions like that. I'm not. They're just wrong.

This may be cute but it still annoys me that people think this.



http://listverse.com/2011/03/12/top-10-mental-illnesses-and-their-myths/

They have DID and schizophrenia on this page.