...Nevertheless, we feel that we should acknowledge one important perspective.Wewill be using the term“disease” when referring to schizophrenia. This approach differs fromthat taken by theAmerican PsychiatricAssociation's (2000) most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV-TR) and the World Health Organization's (1992) International Classification of Disease (ICD-10), where schizophrenia is described as a “disorder.” In contrast to the vagueness of the termdisorder (“something iswrong”), disease implies a discrete entitywith a specific etiology (even if unknown) and a discernible pathology (even if incompletely delineated) (Evans, 1976; Becker, 2005; Berganza et al., 2005; Steurer et al., 2006). We believe that there is sufficient evidence to call schizo- phrenia a disease related to brain abnormalities that are the final “common pathway” caused by an assortment of specific genetic and/or environmental factors.

While many etiological factors and pathophysiological pro-
cesses currently appear relevant to what we consider
schizophrenia and it is almost certain that our construct of
schizophrenia encompasses not one but several diseases,
precise delineation of the constellation of distinct
“individual diseases” that are part of this entity is not
possible at present. We utilize the disease model because
of the clarity it provides and its heuristic value..