Schizophrenia. It's neither new nor rare and in fact it's existed for centuries — and it's the one mental illness that seems to be synonymous with madness. And despite being around for a long time, virtually everything we know about schizophrenia has been learned in the past 200 years — and mostly in the later parts of the 20th and 21st centuries.

With the help of Dr. Adrian Preda, this episode takes us on a brief historical journey of schizophrenia – from then to now – and the stigma that exists around it. Dr. Preda is a psychiatrist and professor at the University of California, Irvine Medical Centre, School of Medicine whose clinical work and research focuses on schizophrenia and other psychotic and cognitive disorders. In December 2020 Dr. Preda wrote an article about the concepts of schizophrenia highlighting the historical debate on one particular theory around “lumpers” and “splitters”.

Resources for show notes:

• Adrian Preda -- Biography
• The Schizophrenia Concept Timeline Highlights
• Benedict Morel and Dementia Praecox
• Krapelin Revisted: Schizophrenia from Degeneration to Failed Regeneration
• Eugen Bleuler and the Schizophrenias: 100 Years After
• The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease by Jonathan Metzl
• The Troubled History of Schizophrenia: How Race Shaped An Illness (NAMI Presentation)