“If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia”. Who said this?

Ciccarelli: Psychology_5 (5th Edition)
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ISBN:9780134477961
Author:Saundra K. Ciccarelli, J. Noland White
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Chapter1: The Science Of Psychology
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“If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia”. Who said this?

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Step 1

Schizophrenia is a severe mental health condition. It is a disorder marked by psychotic symptoms. A schizophrenic individual feels false sensations, hallucinations, and delusions. An individual suffering from schizophrenia will have an abnormal or distorted perception of reality, affecting his ability to think, speech, and behavior.

Step 2

Thomas Szasz was an American psychiatrist. He was known as a social critic of the foundations and beliefs of psychiatry. He described mental illness as a metaphor that is used to explain a person's shocked or disturbed state leading to distorted behavioral patterns. He explained that people may behave in ways that are disoriented or different, and may essentially mirror certain conditions associated with a disorder, in which an individual is manifesting deteriorating patterns of behavior, but these actions can't explain or provide evidence that he has an illness or disease. 

To explain this, he quoted the statement, that if people talks to God it is considered normal, however, if someone believes that God is talking back, then that person is classified as a schizophrenic. 

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