WHAT ARE YOUR ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE TERM SCHIZOPHRENIA - AN INQUIRY CONCERNING THE SOCIAL REPRESENTATION OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

This study addresses the social representation elf schizophrenia. The analysis is based on a representative survey among the population of t he former East German provinces now reunified with formal West Germany as the new ''Lander'' of the Federal Republic, as well as on a survey among medical students at the Universities of Vienna and Leipzig. For those questioned, the most striking feature of schizophrenia was that of a ''split'' personality. In this context they assumed the parallel existence of two (or more) personalities in the sense of a multiple p ersonality disorder. This metaphor is interpreted as the result of a c oncretisation process which is substantially supported by the represen tation of people with mental illness in literature and the media.