Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pathological Schizophrenia

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was delete. The community was ultimately unable to verify the alleged content. Rossami (talk) 03:14, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pathological Schizophrenia

• Unverifiable, original research, idiosyncratic, and unhelpful. Delete with extreme prejudice. -- The Anome 10:28, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • The author has now given a cite two cites. Unfortunately, it does they do not say what they think it means they mean. Yes, you can couple the words "pathological" and "schizophrenia" together. No, it does not imply "fake schizophrenia", as this article implies. -- The Anome 10:44, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

It is a condition well known to Psychologists. I noticed that you did't have an entry for it so I added one. Please feel free to edit it. Perhaps you'd prefer the term psychological schizophrenia? They mean the same thing. 203.26.206.129 10:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Let's break it down into short statements. Schizophrenia is a pathology. So the statement "pathological schizophrenia" is meaningful. Water is wet. So the statement "wet water" is meaningful. However, both statements are redundant, and the word "pathological" is being used merely as an intensifier. That's why you only find 23 mentions of "pathological schizophrenia" on Google, compared to 7,320,000 for "schizophrenia".

And over 10,000 for "psychological schizophrenia"... It seems like that usage is more common than pathological. 203.26.206.129 11:02, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

No, that's 821 when you look for the phrase, rather than the words: try using quotes. -- The Anome 12:31, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

And 10,000 if you try "pathological" AND "schizophrenia" and then look for relevant articles about pathological schizophrenia. I linked a few of them on the page. Internodeuser 13:28, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the psychological-only explanation of schizophrenia is also a busted flush: try Googling for it, and you find mainly accidental conjunctions of words, and articles explaining that it is a dead theory, like the miasma theory of disease. -- The Anome 10:55, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Pathological also means psychological. Pathological doesn't just mean science. I will see if I can find more references for you, since you're so upset about it. 203.26.206.129 11:00, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• Delete never heard of the term. Fake schizophrenia would be an alternative though I have very strong doubts about verifiability and encyclopedic value of the alternative. psychological schizofrenia would be another alternative but I think that user:Anome is right that this is an obsolete/dead/abandoned theory and this should be stated clearly in the article. Or may be Hypochondric schizophrenia? I do not oppose to the latter if this is notable and verifiable. 11:05, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
  • There is a difference between it and "fake schizophrenia". Fake schizophrenia is when you don't have it. Pathological schizophrenia is when you have all of the symptoms and for all intensive purposes are schizophrenic - but with no medical symptoms. There's a difference. 203.26.206.129 11:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Such as? How do you diagnose "pathological schizophrenia", then, if its symptoms are identical to those of 'real' schizophrenia? Your cites so far have not been enlightening on this point. The actual literature on malingering and schizophrenia [1] seems to show that instruments such as the MMPI are pretty good at weeding out malingerers. -- The Anome 11:29, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
      • How do you diagnose it? Well, you may not be aware of this, but there is a medical way to diagnose schizophrenia, which is through analysis of spinal fluid. This is the only certain way of diagnosing schizophrenia. Pathological schizophrenia fails this test. Pretty simple really. Its pretty rare that pathological schizophrenia can't be cured through therapy, and the only examples when it can't is when it is attached to a mental illness with chemical roots, such as depression. Hope that that explains it. 203.26.206.129 11:34, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
      • Fascinating. I must have missed the bit about needing to take a spinal tap in the DSM-IV. Do you mind giving me a cite? Please, don't dig yourself in any deeper. -- The Anome 11:40, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
        • Well I had to get one when they tested me for schizophrenia. I failed that, so they said I wasn't. Was pretty simple. Would take too long to look it up though. I'll leave it for someone else to do. I'm not quite sure of the correct methods that they do.
      • Comment. A lumbar puncture isn't used to diagnose schizophrenia. It is used to rule out certain other disorders (particularly infections like neurosyphilis) which may generate similar symptoms. Though there is some evidence to suggest certain neurotransmitter metabolites may be measured in cerebrospinal fluid drawn by lumbar puncture, such measurements are unreliable and not used in clinical diagnosis. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 21:03, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• • • • • Oh and you should look up Lumbar_puncture rather than spinal tap. They mean the same thing. I will change my wording in this page to match that of Wikipedia. 203.26.206.129 11:55, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
        • The formal medical term is indeed "lumbar puncture", and that's what we should use in articles. Spinal tap is medical slang; for example, a "champagne tap" is one so expertly perfomed that the junior doctor gets bought a bottle of champagne by their consultant. -- The Anome 12:18, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Look, in the spirit of nicey-nicey week, here's a ref to Factitious disorder with psychological schizophrenia symptoms. [2] Unfortunately, the only reference to it on the entire Web is a single page referring to the Morrison, Doe and Decker case. -- The Anome 12:35, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. I've already read that page, so don't worry. lol. There's a lot of personal reasons why I know that this is a real condition. A real lot. Internodeuser 12:51, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• Delete -- Longhair | Talk 13:56, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 15:28, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. The article appears to be almost entirely bogus. The listed cites don't use the term "pathalogical schizophrenia". Quale 18:41, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
• Keep — (Quale: It's "pathological", not "pathalogical".) There appears to be some legitimate work on this supposed disorder, so I think the page needs facts-checking, not deletion. Possibly also needs some clarification to distinguish it from certain pathological symptoms of schizophrenia. — RJH 18:59, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I'm blushing about the typo. First cite has a single mention of pathological schizophrenia but with no apparent connection with this article. The other cites don't mention it at all. Where is the legitimate work you are talking about? This article most definitely needs deletion. Quale 20:21, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. The author says that it is a condition well known to Psychologists, but the term is certainly not general knowledge in abnormal psychology. Also, as Quale noted, the text is not really based on the referenced material. This looks like original research (at best) to me. Sietse 19:06, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Appears to be original research. --Carnildo 19:58, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• Delete; original research. The references in the article don't actually refer to pathological schizophrenia, except for the single self-identified personal account. At best, this article would seem to describe misdiagnosis with schizophrenia—psychologists, like other doctors, do make mistakes. Misdiagnosis and controversies about the nature and cause of schizophrenia are already covered in that article.--TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 21:03, 24 May 2005 (UTC)]
  • Actually, they do all reference it. Try a google search if you dispute it. Its legitimate. 203.26.206.129 08:19, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I must disagree. The phrases "pathological schizophrenia" or "pathologic schizophrenia" do not appear in the last six of eight links. The first link uses "pathological schizophrenia" to refer to schizophrenia, full stop. The second link is a web page by someone who has self-identified with the disorder, but doesn't carry a clinical diagnosis of the purported syndrome. A Google search for "pathological schizophrenia" returns only 23 hits, many of which are referring to classic schizophrenia or to entirely unrelated topics. PubMed doesn't return any results for "pathological schizophrenia". I'm afraid this article still looks to be unsubstantiated original research. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 12:03, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
      • I also checked a few additional sources: the term is not mentioned in two general textbooks on abnormal psychology and produces no relevant hits in a full text database which includes issues of most major journals in the social sciences for the past ten years. Sietse 12:32, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, WP:NOR. Radiant_* 08:52, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete I have never seen this condition listed in any psychological or psychiatric diagnostic system, and some of it is plainly false or incoherent - i.e. "Pathological schizophrenia can be described as the result when a person is diagnosed with schizophrenia through means such as the MMDI personality tests, but when medical tests such as lumbar_puncture finds that a person does not have schizophrenia" - schizophrenia is never diagnosed by either of these two methods. - Vaughan 13:51, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• DeleteI don't think this is in the DSM. At best, it should probably merge into schizophrenia. Xcali 23:55, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
• Comment Unless someone can give me a good reason not to, I will be moving the personal attacks and discussion to the talk page for this VfD. I have no vote at this time while I research this topic.--Tznkai 13:48, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I will wait until 15:00 UTC for an objection before wiping the personal attacks and replies to talk page.--Tznkai 14:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Done--Tznkai 16:35, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

• REDIRECT to Disassociative identity disorder. I think that that talks about the same thing. 203.26.206.129 14:02, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
• Keep US Socail Secuirty Document This term is used in atleast one offical document, even if described as Factitious. Reflag as ActiveDiscuss or other dispute tag--Tznkai 14:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
  • The link above has an extra http:// in it; I believe the corrected link is here. It describes, as a potential mental disability, "Factitious disorder with psychological Schizophrenia symptoms". This is just a catch-all term for disorders with symptoms similar to schizophrenia. This isn't a false diagnosis of schizophrenia (the topic of the article we're discussing here) this is a correct diagnosis (or rather a description) of something that looks like schizophrenia but isn't. It covers patients with mental disorders or infectious diseases (like neurosyphilis) having schizophrenia-like symptoms. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 15:20, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
    • My vote stands, again I believe this should be tagged as disputed, not for deletion. The term has been used, and much of the conention here is on the CONTENT of the article as POV or unsupported. This is a dispute, not a deletion issue. I'd flag and contest it myself, but deletion should not be used as a tool to get rid of things that people might want to learn about.--Tznkai 16:27, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, agree with all those above who have posted references to medical databases. I would like to add that currently the article redirects to Dissociative identity disorder, which states quite clearly at the top that DID is not schizophrenia. --bainer (talk) 00:06, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Comment: Eep. I'm getting slopy already. Page restored. However, I do note that all edits other than the addition of a VFD and my revert were made 203.26.206.129, presumably the author. If the author wishes to remove the article, he or she should speak up and save us all some trouble.

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.