“The National Institute of Mental Health, on its Schizophrenia home page, proclaims confidently that “schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder”, a statement you find on nearly every major page or publication they have put out on the topic; and yet if you spend a little more time looking through their literature, you will find that they admit that “the causes of schizophrenia are still unknown”. Similarly, the American Psychiatric Association also confidently proclaims that “schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder”, but then they acknowledge on the very same page that “scientists do not yet know which factors produce the illness”, and that “the origin of schizophrenia has not been identified”.
The strong bias towards the brain disease theory is clearly evident in the literature of these and other similar organizations, and yet the message comes through loud and clear that we still do not know the cause of schizophrenia. Even the U.S. Surgeon General began his report on the etiology of schizophrenia with the words, “The cause of schizophrenia has not yet been determined”. It would appear, then, that it is simply not appropriate to claim with such confidence that schizophrenia is the result of a brain disorder.”