Schizophrenia

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Schizophrenia, severe mental illness characterized by a variety of symptoms, including loss of contact with reality, bizarre behavior, disorganized thinking and speech, decreased emotional expressiveness, and social withdrawal. Usually only some of these symptoms occur in any one person. The term schizophrenia comes from Greek words meaning “split mind.” However, contrary to common belief, schizophrenia does not refer to a person with a split personality or multiple personality. (For a description of a mental illness in which a person has multiple personalities, see Dissociative Identity Disorder.) To observers, schizophrenia may seem like madness or insanity.

SYMPTOMS:

A variety of symptoms characterize schizophrenia. The most prominent include symptoms of psychosis—such as delusions and hallucinations—as well as bizarre behavior, strange movements, and disorganized thinking and speech. Many people with schizophrenia do not recognize that their mental functioning is disturbed.

  • Delusions -> Delusions are false beliefs that appear obviously untrue to other people. For example, a person with schizophrenia may believe that he is the king of England when he is not.
  • Hallucinations -> People with schizophrenia may also experience hallucinations (false sensory perceptions). People with hallucinations see, hear, smell, feel, or taste things that are not really there. Auditory hallucinations, such as hearing voices when no one else is around, are especially common in schizophrenia.
  • Bizarre Behavior -> People with schizophrenia often behave bizarrely. They may talk to themselves, walk backward, laugh suddenly without explanation, make funny faces, or masturbate in public.
  • Disorganized Thinking and Speech -> People with schizophrenia sometimes talk in incoherent or nonsensical ways, which suggests confused or disorganized thinking. In conversation they may jump from topic to topic or string together loosely associated phrases. They may combine words and phrases in meaningless ways or make up new words. In addition, they may show poverty of speech, in which they talk less and more slowly than other people, fail to answer questions or reply only briefly, or suddenly stop talking in the middle of speech.
  • Social Withdrawal -> Another common characteristic of schizophrenia is social withdrawal. People with schizophrenia may avoid others or act as though others do not exist. They often show decreased emotional expressiveness. For example, they may talk in a low, monotonous voice, avoid eye contact with others, and display a blank facial expression.
  • Other symptoms of schizophrenia include difficulties with memory, attention span, abstract thinking, and planning ahead. People with schizophrenia commonly have problems with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

CAUSES:

Schizophrenia appears to result not from a single cause, but from a variety of factors. Most scientists believe that schizophrenia is a biological disease caused by genetic factors, an imbalance of chemicals in the brain, structural brain abnormalities, or abnormalities in the prenatal environment. In addition, stressful life events may contribute to the development of schizophrenia in those who are predisposed to the illness.

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