Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

One of the major concerns of modern medicine is Schizophrenia.

Frey defines schizophrenia as a group of disorders marked by severely impaired thinking, emotions, and behaviors (99). Straube and Oades incorporate more on its definition by saying this illness evokes a fundamental disturbance of personality (92).

According to Gottesman, schizophrenia didn’t exist before the 19th century. He found many facts that lead to this hypothesis, finding no existence of this illness in ancient writings. He argues that schizophrenia was described clinically in 1809, and since then, this disease has been rapidly increasing to western world. (91)

Schizophrenia commonly begins between the ages of 15 and 25. This brain disease affects equally men and women equally. Very rarely, the symptoms of schizophrenia start before the age of 12. “Schizophrenia is a disease that makes it difficult for a person to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses to others, and to behave normally in social situations. People with schizophrenia may also have difficulty in remembering, talking, and behaving appropriately”. (http://www.mhsource.com/narsad/schiz.html)

According to Reynolds, Illnesses like schizophrenia bring unthinkable misery to sufferers and their families. Unlike other illnesses, it marks not only afflicted individuals, but also their relatives (96).

Types and Symptoms of Schizophrenia:

It is important to understand that there are different types of this mental illness as well. According to Hoffer, The different types are: paranoid, catatonic, disorganized, undifferentiated and the residual type. In cases like paranoid type, auditory hallucinations an...

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...ew perspectives on the neurodevelopment hypothesis of schizophrenia”. Psychiatric Annals. Vol. 29 (3), 128-130.

8. Hoffer, Abram. (1999). “Diagnosing Schizophrenia: Past, present, and future”. Journal of Orthomelecular Medicine.p( 3-15).

9. Reynolds, S.R. (1996). “Treatment of Schizophrenia. Understanding and Coping with Schizophrenia”. P(32-42).

Sara Laiz

Psychological Perspectives

March, 2002

REFERENCES

Straube, Eckart R and Oades, Robert. (1992) “Schizophrenia, Empirical Research and Findings”, Academic Press, p3

Gottesman, Irving I.(1991) “Schizophrenia Genesis: The Origins of Madness”. W.H Freeman and Company, New York, p1

Frey, Rebecca J (1999). “Schizophrenia”. : Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine, Edition 1, p2551.

Bradford, Daniel W. (1999). “Atypical anti psychotic drugs in treatment refractory schizophrenia”. Psychiatric Annals.