Five Categories of Schizophrenia

Suppressing Me, Myself, and I

R. D. Laing has stated, “Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair” (“Schizophrenia Quotes” 1). In his statement, he reveals a side of schizophrenia that is more than a mental disorder, he shows how vulnerable and painful the disorder can be for those who are diagnosed. Patients who have been diagnosed with such a challenging obstacle, may often feel a sense of despair in an attempt to conquer schizophrenia and its symptoms. Medication for the mental disorder has advanced, so that those affected can manage and control the symptoms that come along with schizophrenia to live a healthy, fulfilling life.

People today are not completely educated about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects millions from country to country. In today’s up and coming world, men and women over the age of eighteen that suffer from schizophrenia, has developed to 1.1% (“Schizophrenia” 1). Schizophrenia, on average, begins between the ages of sixteen and thirty, and men normally accumulate the disease before women. With the mental disorder, “positive” and negative symptoms occur. “Positive” symptoms include: hallucinations, messy speech, delusions, and catatonic behavior. Negative symptoms include: loss of interest and drive, roller coaster emotions, the difficulty to extract obvious hints, and come across as being in a mood that is difficult to understand, such as depression (Frankenburg 1).

Schizophrenia has been studied and determined to have five different categories. Paranoid schizophrenia is apparent when the patient shows signs of being suspicious and a thought of always being persecuted. Disorganized schizophrenia is determined by the patient’s behavior of having a...

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...zophrenic patient and correspond it with a person without the disorder. With their research, it was discovered that older fathers are more likely to pass the inheritable gene onto their offspring (Goff 2). Scientists have scanned brain after brain of schizophrenics’ and people without the disorder, to conclude that, by about 3%, a schizophrenic’s brain is smaller than a human who does not have the disorder (“How Schizophrenia Develops…” 1). Scientists have also found another difference in schizophrenic patients and those who do not have the illness. “MRI and CT scans of schizophrenic patients indicate that ventricles, cavities filled with spinal fluid, are on average larger by 40% (“How

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Schizophrenia Develops…” 1). Any signs of schizophrenia in genes should be treated as early as possible to minimize any further struggle with the mental illness.