SchizophreniaSchizophrenia

Schizophrenia

• The MOST serious of all psychological disorders.

• Loss of contact with reality

• Can make it impossible for a person to function alone.

Schizophrenic Disorder Symptoms

• Delusions (Ex: believing they are being followed all the time)

• Hallucinations• Hearing Voices• Disorganized speech • No longer able to adapt to situations

OnsetOnset

• Early Adolescence / Early Adulthood

• Rarely over 35

• Emergence sudden or gradual-sudden easier to recover from

Causes

• Psychoanalytic

• Biological

Psychoanalytic Causes

• The ego can’t handle the urges from the id. So, the individual regresses to an early stage of development where fantasies become confused with reality.

Psychoanalytic Causes

• Family Environment: When a parent expresses intense emotions and is pushy, critical and mean to children is COULD increase the likelihood of someone developing schizophrenia.

Biological View

• It’s a BRAIN disorder. It could be caused by:

• Heredity (passed from parent to child)

• Complications during pregnancy/birth

• Birth during winter

BOTH!

• There may be Both psychoanalytic AND biological factors for schizophrenia.

• Genetics may make someone more susceptible to schizophrenia and other factors like a bad home environment may make schizophrenia more likely.

Treatment

• Drug therapy• Behavior therapy

Schizophrenic Symptoms

Positive SymptomsPositive Symptoms • Hallucinations• Delusions• Bizarre ideas

Positive easier to cure than negative

• Negative SymptomsNegative Symptoms

• Lack of emotions

• Social withdrawal

• Apathy

Types of Schizophrenia

• Paranoid

• Catatonic

• Disorganized

• Undifferentiated

Paranoid Schizophrenia

• People have delusions or hallucinaitons that all relate to ONE theme.

• Example: Someone is convinced that they the FBI is following them. Everything they think they see and hear reinforces that idea. Any car that passes by their house MUST be working for the FBI!

Disorganized Schizophrenia

• People have thoughts and behaviors that don’t seem to make sense or connect with one another.

• Either emotionless or showing inappropriate emotions (laughing at a funeral).

• Neglect physical appearance.

Catatonic Schizophrenia

• Most obvious symptom: disturbance of movement.

• People with this form of schizophrenia may hold unusual, uncomfortable body positions for long periods of time.

Recovery

• Full recovery (rare)

• Partial recovery

• Chronic