ABSTRACT
The thought disorder, not delusions and hallucinations, is the essential feature of schizophrenia. Delusions and hallucinations are the schizophrenic's attempt to heal, just as a fever is symptomatic of the body's fight against an infection. The fever is not the disease; it is the body's immune system fighting the disease. People with AIDS get infections but not fevers because their immune system is so compromised they cannot fight back. The same is true with decompensating schizophrenics overwhelmed by their thought disorder and unable to make sense out of the universe. Delusions and hallucinations are their attempt to explain what is happening to them, to bring order into the chaotic reality their thought disorder has thrown them into. The restitutive nature of delusions was well illustrated in the cases of Dennis and Sam in the preceding section on Joining the Delusion in Chapter 3. The totally decompensated schizophrenic in the back ward of a state hospital is a vegetable without delusions, without hallucinations, and with an overwhelmingly apparent thought disorder.
