The Family, Violence and Suicide in Schizophrenia

• Since researches have shown that the causes of Schizophrenia lean more toward genetics, heredity seems to be an essential factor too which is always taken into consideration. That allows experts to think about the importance of the family. Family plays a significant role when it comes to helping the ill and living with the ill. The most important thing family members can do to help their relative with this serious mental illness is to have hope and transmit that feeling to them through support, comprehension and acceptance. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill published that serious chronic mental disorders affect and devastate the lives of approximately 15 million family members. Something else that sometimes threatens the quality of life and the life itself of an untreated Schizophrenic patient is the acts of violence this mentally ill patient can engage in due to their lack of self control. On the contrary, when the schizophrenic is treated the right way, this patient does not have to be violent. When the psychotic symptoms which are most likely the negative ones, are treated accordingly, the activeness disappears. Even when the symptoms are active, 90% of schizophrenic patients are not violent, but that 10% has to be indisputably treated. People fear those who are different such as Schizophrenics, but sometimes treatments are so medically and technologically developed that there isn’t really anything to fear. Another even bigger and graver threat for Schizophrenic patients is Suicide. Suicide is very common in Schizophrenic patients. Factors such as the family and the interactions with others might be some causes for suicide in Schizophrenics. Some researchers are trying to find out if there is a connection between suicide and some of the treatment given to Schizophrenics. The fact that suicide is usual in Schizophrenics alarms the medical field and that is why it is necessary to understand the origin of this behavior on these mentally ill people. Again, the question is: Why is there a linkage between Schizophrenia and suicidal tendencies? The truth is that there are many reasons why people commit suicide. This makes it more complicated to determine, understand and identify the real reason for a Schizophrenic patient to do it. Suicidologists have said that suicide has a simpler explanation. So many people would think that suicide goes together with cowardice and the desire to escape, but Edwin Schneidmann, a Suicidologist, stated that people who commit suicide attempt to solve a problem instead of escaping something. Now, what problem? And how can dying help? Those are questions that still might not have concrete answers. Going back to the actual interaction between Schizophrenia and Suicide, in studies with Schizophrenic patients who committed suicide being compared to Schizophrenic patients who did not commit suicide and/or to people who committed suicide but were not schizophrenic, some risk factors for suicide specific to schizophrenic patients were recognized. Some of these risk factors are depression, family history of suicide, family stress or instability, loss of parent during childhood, being a male, being white, recent loss or rejection, socially isolated and others.

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