Schizophrenia and violence When is someone a danger to himself or others?


The news from Tucson is painful for all of us, but in a particular way for anyone related to someone with mental illness.   For parents of the mentally ill, headlines about a person who is almost certainly psychotic cause anxiety and pain.  But psychosis isn't the same thing as rage, even though it may involve it; in fact, it is often a state of intense fear.  People with schizophrenia, as well as those with bipolar psychosis, seem to want to protect themselves, first and foremost; sometimes they want to right some enormous wrong and save the world; sometimes they want to stop the hurt and end it all.   A world where nothing looks real and no perception can be trusted -where the TV is sending cryptic messages and the faces of loved ones are distorted masks-is at best unsafe; at worst, intolerable.