Schizophrenia

Last reviewed Saturday, October 24, 2026

Schizophrenia is a long-term mental health condition that causes psychosis: changes in how a person perceives reality, such as hearing voices others don’t hear or holding fixed beliefs that aren’t true. It most often starts in the late teens or twenties. With treatment and support, many people recover or live full lives.

Also called: there’s no other medical name. “Split personality” is wrong; that’s a confusion with dissociative identity disorder. Many people still say “madness”, a word that wounds. Say “a person with schizophrenia”.

For the common myths, read Schizophrenia: Facts vs Myths in Nigeria.

Signs and symptoms

Hallucinations: hearing, seeing or feeling things that aren’t there
Delusions: fixed beliefs that something is true despite evidence against it
Feeling that others control your thoughts or put them in your mind
Jumbled speech and disorganised behaviour
Withdrawal, very little speech, flat emotions and loss of interest

Causes

There’s no single cause. Genes and environment interact, and stress can affect when it starts and how it goes. Heavy cannabis use is linked to a higher risk.

Treatment

Treatment combines antipsychotic medicine, prescribed by a psychiatrist, with talking therapy such as CBT for psychosis, family therapy, and help with daily skills, work and housing. Talking therapy works best alongside medicine. Mytherapist.ng therapists offer talking therapy and family support; they don’t prescribe.

In Nigeria

Stigma is heavy. In a 2005 survey in three Yoruba-speaking states, most people said they’d be afraid to talk to someone with mental illness. Supernatural explanations are common. In Nigerian hospital studies, many people with psychosis had seen a traditional or faith healer first. Schizophrenia responds to medical and psychological treatment, whatever a person’s beliefs, and a trial in Ibadan and Kumasi, Ghana, found that care shared between healers and primary care workers improved symptoms. The National Mental Health Act 2021 bans chaining, including at faith and traditional centres.

Schizophrenia vs psychosis

Psychosis is a set of symptoms, losing touch with reality; schizophrenia is one condition that causes it. Psychosis can also come with bipolar disorder or severe depression, after childbirth, from drugs or alcohol, or from illnesses such as malaria.

When to get help

If someone is very unwell or not safe, call 112 (or 767 in Lagos), or Safe Place Nigeria on 0800 800 2000. The full list is on our helplines page. The Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Yaba runs a 24-hour emergency unit.

At the first signs, see a doctor or psychiatrist. Alongside psychiatric care, you can book a licensed therapist on Mytherapist.ng who works with psychotic disorders.

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