These two terms are often erroneously used interchangeably by the popular press as well as by those who should know better, but other than beginning with psych- they have virtually nothing in common. In fact, in some sense they are polar opposites. Psychotics suffer from serious mental disorders of thought and emotion, probably biologically caused. The most common psychoses are the schizophrenias, a group of diseases, sometimes acute but more often chronic, featuring disintegration—not splitting—of personality. Schizophrenics represent between 1 and 4 percent of the population in virtually every society studied and suffer from confused and grossly distorted thoughts (delusions) and perceptions (hallucinations), extreme reliance upon internal stimulation (withdrawal and autism), impoverished thinking and language, and, more often than not, extremely high levels of anxiety and/or depression. Contrary to the nonsensical theories of authors such as British psychiatrist R. D. Laing, who attained prominence during the 1960s with the notion that schizophrenia is glamorous, artistic, and poetic, madmen live in a dark, jumbled world of pain and torment.
