Breakfast with Bongani Bingwa

Schizophrenia has often been negatively perceived and been badly depicted in media, with people assuming that those who suffer from mental illness can turn violent.

Contrary to this stigma, psychiatrist Dr Kobus Roux says those who live with the mental illness are often passive.

Roux shares some of the symptoms and says if the illness goes untreated, it can lead to psychosis or brain damage.

Those symptoms can be voices in their head, hallucinations or delusions but when you are treated these symptoms can go away and you can live a normal and functional life sometimes.

— Dr Kobus Roux, Psychiatrist

We talk about episodes in mental disorder and if you have many episodes or psychosis then your brain gets attacked and you get brain damage or get more sick.

— Dr Kobus Roux, Psychiatrist

Psychosis is a very broad term which means you lose contact with reality... so you start to live in your own head.

— Dr Kobus Roux, Psychiatrist

Common thing where someone with schizophrenia becomes dangerous is if they have paranoid delusions and act on those delusions. So they believe that someone is a danger to them and they think that they are protecting themselves against this person.

— Dr Kobus Roux, Psychiatrist

Click on the link below to hear the full conversation...