The undergraduate diploma thesis treats schizophrenia as a mental illness that has biological
and social causes and affects cognitive abilities. Psychosis is presented as the most dominant
symptom of schizophrenia; therefore, some anthropological and philosophical explanations of
the phenomenon are presented. In relation to psychosis, the author wonders what psychosis
wants to say through the patient, so she cites two conversations with people who had psychotic
symptoms at some point in their lives.
These conversations are placed within the mentioned theoretical points of view, that relate to
existential explanations of schizophrenia, semiological paradigms of using metaphor in
psychotic speech and communication complications between messages of different logical
types in schizophrenia. The emphasis is on the psychoanalytic aspects of the explanation of
psychosis. The thesis combines philosophical and anthropological dilemmas that arise in
connection with the universality of the perception of mental illness and schizophrenia and their
treatment between different cultures. In a comparative analysis of mental illness and
schizophrenia between different cultures, the author compared the countries of the West, which
are considered advanced countries, and the Eastern countries, which represent developing
countries. Philosophicalanthropological concerns about the definition of the terms normality
and pathology are also presented.
The author briefly presents the shortcomings of the psychiatric institution and lists the
important authors and movements that have led to changes and the processes of
deinstitutionalization.
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