In the mental health field, schizophasia, commonly referred to as word salad (see "word salad" for other meanings), is used to describe the symptom of confused, and often repetitious, language that is symptomatic of various mental illnesses. It is usually associated with a manic presentation and other symptoms of serious mental illnesses, such as psychoses, including schizophrenia. It describes the apparently confused usage of words with no apparent meaning or relationship attached to them. In this context, it is considered to be a symptom of a formal thought disorder. In some cases schizophasia can be a sign of asymptomatic schizophrenia; e.g. the question "Why do people believe in God?" could elicit a response consisting of a series of words commonly associated with religion or prayer but strung together with no regard to language rules.

Schizophasia should be contrasted with another symptom of cognitive disruption and cognitive slippage involving certain idiosyncratic arrangements of words. With this symptom, the language may or may not be grammatically correct depending on the severity of the disease and the particular mechanisms which have been impacted by the disease. Thus, the phrase "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas" and the phrase "Blue does runs shaky lovely very" can be authentic schizophasias (one grammatically correct, the other not) if they are produced as a result of mental disease or defect. In contrast, intentionally producing nonsense, as in the contrived palindrome "Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas" is not considered schizophasia. Schizophasia refers to a defect in processing and organizing language, as opposed to the ability to create a nonsense word which happens to conform to a very specific set of rules.

The American diagnostic codes, from the DSM-IV, do not specifically code for this disorder although they include it as a symptom under the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

The episode "_2005.E2.80.932006" from the American TV series Boston Legal depicts a character with this condition.

See also

• Cluttering
• Schizophrenia
• Dysarthria
• Dysphasia
• Slurred speech

References