It's Time for Counselors to Modify Our Language: It Matters When We Call Our Clients Schizophrenics Versus People With Schizophrenia

Practicing mental health counselors and counselors‐in‐training (N = 251) were given a measure of tolerance toward people with schizophrenia. Half of the sample received a version that used the term “schizophrenic” and half received a version that used “person with schizophrenia.” Counselors and those in training who received the version with the term “schizophrenic” had attitudes that were more authoritarian, more socially restrictive, and less benevolent. Practicing counselors and counseling students were both affected by terminology, although there were greater differences in tolerance based on language for practicing counselors. The results of this study provide the first empirical evidence for the elimination of the term “schizophrenic” from clinical practice.