Introduction
Approximately 22% of the American population suffers from some kind of mental disorder at any given time. (Passer and Smith, 2004) Schizophrenia is one of the most serious of these mental disorders, and there are many different kinds of treatment. While all mental disorders offer diagnosis and treatment challenges, few are more challenging than schizophrenia. It is both bizarre and puzzling, and has been described as “one of the most challenging disorders to treat effectively.” (Passer and Smith, 2004, 534)
Schizophrenia is not yet fully understood, but it is known that it is characterized by extreme disturbances in many vital areas, including behavior, emotions, speech, perception and thinking. The term schizophrenia means “split mind,” but it should be noted that this does not mean that the person has dissociative identity disorder. Bleuler, who coined the term, merely meant that the sufferers have a split or disconnection in certain functions, such as emotion, language, or thinking. (Passer and Smith, 2004, 534) The following definition of schizophrenia is offered:
Schizophrenia is a lifelong disabling psychiatric disorder that often begins in late adolescence or early adulthood. It is characterized by severe and variable symptoms, including positive and negative symptoms, cognitive deficits and depressive symptoms. (Lublin, Eberhard and Levander, 2005, 183)
Diagnosis of schizophrenia may be made when the patient shows that he or she “misinterprets reality and exhibits disorder attention, thought, or perception.” (Passer and Smith, 2004, 534) Moreover, the person commonly has delusions, which have been defined as follows:
Delusions are false beliefs that are sustained in the face of evidence that normally w...
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...research has certainly shown that it is less efficacious than drug therapy.
Bibliography
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Schizophrenia is a complex syndrome characterized by cognitive and emotional dysfunctions including delusions and hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior, and inappropriate emotions. Since there is no cure to this disorder, clinicians rely on the DSM IV to differentiate between symptoms. The symptoms of the disorder can disrupt a person’s perception, thought, speech, and movement in almost every aspect of daily functions. Mental health clinicians distinguish between positive, negative, and disorganized symptoms. Positive symptoms include active manifestations of abnormal behavior, which hallucinations and delusions fall in. Negative symptoms of schizophrenia are alogia and avolition. Rambling speech, erratic behavior, and inappropriate affect are some of the symptoms that are outlined under the disorganized content. The foundations of schizophrenia lye within two noted psychologists by name of Eugen Bleuler and Emil Kraepelin.
Turkington D, Dudley R, Warman DM, and Beck AT (2006) Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Schizophrenia: A Review Focus, Spring 2006; 4: 223 - 233.
Addington, J., Piskulic, D., & Marshall, C. (n.d). Psychosocial Treatments for Schizophrenia. Current Directions In Psychological Science, 19(4), 260-263.
My patient Gerald –according to the video- is diagnosed with a textbook case schizophrenia. He exhibits paranoid thinking and his speech is disorganized, his thoughts are loosely connected, and he has formed delusions, he exhibits mood disturbances, and exhibits disordered behaviors (Schizophrenia: Gerald, Part 1). The goal for Gerald is multi-factorial; first, it is important to place into context that Gerald’s schizophrenia is refractory to pharmacological management. Due to Gerald’s complex presentation of multiple symptoms, the goal for the interaction is improved m...
According to the Johns Hopkins Medicine Website , schizophrenia is “a mental illness that usually strikes in late adolescence or early adulthood, but can strike at any time in life” that is characterized by “delusions, hallucinations, bizarre behavior, [and] disorganized speech” among other symptoms. Schizophrenia is, at its core, the altering of a person’s perception of reality by some somatic means and when observed by a psychologically sound individual, can be quite unsettling. After all, seeing a person whose reality is fractured causes us to doubt our own reality, if only in a fleeting thought.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness. Patients experience progressive personality changes and a breakdown in their relationships with the outside world. They have disorganized and abnormal thinking, behavior and language and become emotionally unresponsive or withdrawn.
Schizophrenia is a type of psychological disorder that affects a person’s brain and affects how they think and act on a daily bases. The disorder is known to be one of the most disabling and puzzling psychological disorder. People that suffer from this disorder have stated experiences that it is almost like a break from reality. It seems that schizophrenia in the past years has become a larger issue in our society. Moreover, people who develop the disorder seem to be disengaged from the common things in our lives such as working a job and having a relationship with others. There are many reasons why schizophrenia is one of the most bizarre and disabling types of mental disorders.
What is Schizophrenia? Schizophrenia is brain disorder that makes it hard to see the difference between reality and imagination, have normal emotional responses, and act normal in social situations. Schizophrenia is relatively young, it has only been around for less than 100 years. It was first discovered by Dr. Emile Kraeplin in 1887. He believed it was a mental illness. A few documents take Schizophrenia’s origins back to Egypt during the Pharaoh’s rule around 1550 B.C. People originally thought schizophrenia was simply madness, and usually associated it with madness, even though it is quite different from madness. Symptoms of this disease include Positive symptoms, which are: hallucinations, or things that someone can see, feel, smell, or hear that do not really exist. Many people hear voices inside their heads, see people that are not there, or smell odors no one else smells. Delusions are another symptom, also known as bizarre beliefs, these may include paranoid delusions also, which are delusions that tell the person that others are trying to hurt them. Thought Disorders are a symptom in which the person thinks unusually or dysfunctionally. Movement disorders may be present in schizophrenic people, they may seem like twitches or small, sharp, and sudden movements. Schizophrenia’s “negative symptoms” are harder to recognize. These include the flat affect, in which the persons face doesn’t move and the voice is droning. The lack of pleasure in life is another once, along with the lack of ability to start and sustain activities, and little speech. These symptoms prevent or block the person from living a normal life because they cause social, physical, and emotional, and mental problems. This may lead to psychosis, insanity, or ...
BIBLIOGRAPHY Arasse, Daniel. Complete Guide to Mental Health. Allen Lane Press,New York, 1989. Gingerich, Susan. Coping With Schizophrenia. New Harbinger Publications, Inc. Oakland, 1994. Kass, Stephen. Schizophrenia: The Facts. Oxford University Press. New York, 1997. Muesen, Kim. “Schizophrenia”. Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation, 1998. Young, Patrick. The Encyclopedia od Health, Psychological Disorders and Their Treatment. Herrington Publications. New York, 1991.
Schizophrenia is a complicated, mostly permanent psychological disorder involving a disturbances in the relation amongst thought, emotions, and behaviour, leading to defective perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality. The National Mental Health Commission makes 10 recommendations, including reducing the use of restraint, seclusion and involuntary treatments. Recommendation 6 states, “There must be the same national commitment to safety and quality of care for mental health services as there is for general health services.”
“Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by disturbances in thought, emotion, and behavior−disordered thinking, in which ideas are not logically related; faulty perception and attention; lack of emotional expressiveness or, at times, inappropriate expressions; and disturbances in movement and behavior, such as a dishelved appearance.”() As you can see there is a wide range of symptoms used to diagnose schizophrenia but most of the time someone with schizophrenia only has a few of the symptoms. This makes schizophrenia a difficult disorder to stereotype because there is not one main symptom that must be present to diagnose. The DSM-5 criteria for a diagnoses of schizophrenia is defined as having two or more symptoms for at least one month. The symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, and negative symptoms such as reduced motivation or emotional expression. Delusions, ha...
Pilling, S., Bebbington, P., Kuipers, E., Garety, P., Geddes, J., Orbach, G. et al. (2002). Psychological treatments in schizophrenia: I. Meta-analysis of family interventions and cognitive behaviour therapy. Psychological Medicine, 32, 763–782.
Schizophrenia is undeniably one of the most profound, and adverse psychological disorders known to date. The methodological approach to treating schizophrenia is complex and multi-variant. Much contention arises around the specific treatments and medication models used today in order to lessen the global and individual effects of the disorder. For this reason, I had a rather difficult time finding a method of treatment that seemed to display universal efficacy. Although it is seemingly negligible to find a universal method for treatment (due to the existential reality of science, and the disorder itself), there nonetheless should be an emphasis placed on the treatments that yield the most statistical and clinical significance. Simply put, I
Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness affecting around one percent of humanity. Though estimates vary, conservatively, of that one percent, around a third are victims of the most intractable form of the disease. The purpose of this literature review is to examine the effectiveness and efficacy of established modalities for those diagnosed with this treatment resistant schizophrenia.