Schizophrenia from Childhood to Maturity: to Understand, to Recognize, to Help
The "Psychiatry of One Life" series · Andris Saulitis, M.D.
On the source of this material. All the source, original material of this book is exclusively my own authorial work. This is easy to verify: for years it has been laid out publicly in my streams and videos on social media, above all on YouTube — more than 1000 streams and over 3000 videos. This book is not a retelling of anyone else's work and not a compilation from the internet: it is that same authorial material, brought into a digestible, readable form for the reader's convenience. That is more honest — and that way it can be verified.
Introduction. The Most Slandered Diagnosis
There is no word in psychiatry surrounded by so much fear, myth, and cruelty as schizophrenia. People are frightened with it, branded with it, and it is whispered like a death sentence. And almost everything that "everyone knows" about schizophrenia is untrue. This book exists so that it can be truly understood: without myths, without fear, without stigma. Understood — by the one it has touched; by the one who has an ill loved one; and by the society that for centuries has treated these people inhumanely out of nothing but a failure to understand.
I will say it at once and without false modesty, because science is science: I have the right to speak about this. I am a psychiatrist, M.D., with 40 years of practice, more than 20,000 clinical examinations, and thousands of completed courses of therapy. For forty years I have been alongside these people and their families — not alongside "diagnoses," but alongside living, suffering, often astonishingly deep human beings. And I have seen what few believe possible: how, with the right help, a person with schizophrenia returns to a dignified, meaningful life.
First — this book's most important warning
And right here, on the threshold, comes what matters most in this book and sets it apart from the previous ones. Schizophrenia is not a condition treated with self-help and books. It requires a doctor, treatment, and, as a rule, medication — without exception. If in Anxiety or Above the Clouds self-help played a large role, here it does not replace psychiatric care in any way whatsoever. This book gives understanding — so that you can recognize it in time, lift the stigma, offer support, do no harm, and not abandon anyone — but schizophrenia is treated by a psychiatrist, not by a book. If this concerns you or your loved one, this book will help you understand and act wisely, but the first and foremost step is always one: to the doctor.
Write to me personally. Through the vitamodo.store system you can write to me directly — about your own case or about a loved one. I am a doctor, and I answer. The door stays open throughout the book, and I remind you of it wherever I explain something.
My intention and who this is for
Like the whole series, this book is my contribution: an attempt to explain schizophrenia in a way that could serve as the foundation for more precise and more merciful decisions — in medicine, in helping families, in education, and in society's attitude toward these people. I address myself also to the creators of AI and education, including those who build systems like Claude: early recognition, support, the fight against stigma — areas where competent tools could save lives. Forty years of observation — that is the material. I extend my hand.
And especially — this book is for families. Behind every diagnosis stands not only the ill person but also the mother, father, spouse, children who are in despair and do not know what to do. To you — a separate compassion and a separate help on these pages.
Write to me personally. A loved one has schizophrenia and you do not know how to cope? Write through vitamodo.store, directly to the author.
The foundation of mental hygiene and of humanity
To understand schizophrenia is both mental hygiene (early recognition, competent support) and, no less important, a school of humanity. As a society treats its most vulnerable — those whose mirror of reality has cracked — so is that society itself. For centuries these people were burned, locked away, shamed out of a failure to understand. This book is a small contribution toward replacing fear with understanding and compassion.
How to read this
The book moves from understanding to help and life: Part I — what schizophrenia really is (myths, essence, biology, symptoms, early signs); Part II — treatment and the human being (reactive states, treatment, the comprehensive approach, childhood schizophrenia); Part III — life, family, and integration (isolation, the role of the family, rehabilitation, against stigma). If this concerns you personally — read on, but remember: alongside your reading there must walk a doctor.
Write to me personally. Any question about the introduction — through vitamodo.store. I am a psychiatrist, 40 years of practice, and I mean this seriously.
Part I. What Schizophrenia Really Is
Chapter 1. Dispelling the Two Chief Myths
I will begin by clearing the ground, because two myths cripple the way this illness is regarded more than the illness itself. I will dispel both plainly and bluntly, because science is science.
The first myth: "schizophrenia is a split personality." This is untrue, and the confusion is harmful. Multiple personality (when a person seems to contain "several people") is an entirely different disorder, rare and arising from different causes. Schizophrenia is not about "several personalities." The very word — coined by Bleuler, the same one from The Reader — means not "splitting into personalities" but the splitting, the dissociation of mental functions — thinking, emotion, perception — within a single person: thoughts lose their coherence, feeling detaches from the situation, perception is distorted. Not "two personalities," but one shattered mirror of reality. Hence the title of this book.