Jim van Os

In 2016 he published an editorial arguing that disease classifications should drop the concept of "schizophrenia", as it is an unhelpful description of symptoms.

In 2015 he co-authored an article in a national newspaper, suggesting that "schizo-labels" be abandoned and replaced with more scientific and patient-friendly terminology. The following week, his colleagues Rene Kahn, Iris Sommer, and Damiaan Denys published a counter-article, labeling Van Os and his colleagues as "antipsychiatrists".

In 2014 he explained his views in a TED talk and was listed in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science list of "the world’s most influential scientific minds of our time" (2014/2015).

In 2011 he was elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 2009, van Os proposed the retirement of the diagnosis, "schizophrenia", citing its lack of validity and the risk of fundamental attribution error associated with the label. The label "schizophrenia" could cause difficulties on the clinician's part in communicating with the diagnosed person, due to erroneous preconceptions associated with the label.

Jim van Os (born 1960) is a Dutch professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Public Mental Health at Utrecht University Medical Centre, the Netherlands.