Approximately 20% of North Americans will be affected by a mental illness during the course of their lifetime (Saha, Welham, Chant, & McGrath, 2008). Schizophrenia continues to develop new challenges today and continues to be a complex mental illness. It is a brain disorder that can happen to anyone occurring in any culture, affecting men and women equally and all areas of functioning, including thought, emotion, perception, and behavior.
Most commonly, schizophrenia strikes a person between his or her late teens and early 20s. Nonetheless, it can affect children as young as 12-years-old, or may lay dormant in a person until their late 20s (Saha, et al., 2008; Ueland & Rund, 2005). The cause of Schizophrenia is not fully known. However, it shows that Schizophrenia may be caused by the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Biological interpretations have dominated in previous studies. Nevertheless, neither the biological nor the environmental categories is determinant completely, and there is no guarantee that one will confirm if he will or will not develop Schizophrenia.
Symptoms of Schizophrenia
The symptoms of schizophrenia range in severity and consistency. The most common symptom that people with schizophrenia experience is the inability to distinguish between real events from hallucinations and dreams. Some other usual signs and symptoms occur are anger, tendency to argue, intensity when interacting with others and violent behavior. They may appear very suddenly, or they may gradually come over an extended period (Saha, et al., 2008). Symptoms vary between individuals, and for periods of time a person with schizophrenia may experience no symptoms before experiencing a psychotic epis...
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The chance of an individual in the general population without a family history of schizophrenia is currently at one percent. An individual with a parent with the illness has a 10 percent chance of developing the illness and an ind...
Rector, N. A., & Beck, A. T. (2001). Cognitive behavioral therapy for schizophrenia: an empirical review. The Journal of nervous and mental disease,189(5), 278-287.
...ght as to when booster sessions may be most helpful. Finally, research examining the potential stigma associated with providing treatment to these at-risk individuals would be helpful. If it is determined that providing these treatments to at risk individuals is stigmatizing, this may be an area of focus for clinicians working within this population. Overall, this area of research is of extreme importance due to the fact that longer periods of untreated illness in psychosis are associated with poorer prognosis. However, further research on the efficacy of CT for the prodrome is needed, and the limitations of this research should be addressed further, such as testing the intervention with individuals of various ethnic backgrounds, tracking participants outcomes over longer periods of time, and testing the intervention against other well validated treatment programs.
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Addington, J., Piskulic, D., & Marshall, C. (n.d). Psychosocial Treatments for Schizophrenia. Current Directions In Psychological Science, 19(4), 260-263.
It has been stated that schizophrenia plays a very large role pertaining to who a person is and how that person’s actions are interpreted by the culture they live in. To contain the context of what schizophrenia is, the textbook definition reports it as a “severe disorder of thought and emotion associated with a loss of contact with reality” (Lilinfeld 479). The author of this textbook has put in the time and done the research to discover the most socially accepted and understood definition that could be possible. This definition in itself is almost overwhelming to consider that this is a disorder that currently has lifetime affects. Thought and emotional aspects come into play by realizing that any deviation from what a person normally thinks and feels will, without a doubt, affect how their thoughts and emotions change. By changing thoughts and emotions, actions will inevitably be affected in how they are carried out. This is where the culturally accepted portion becomes an issue because anything that is away from the normal action will have attention drawn to...
...as, Lawrence Yusupoff, Eilis McCarthy, Caroline Kinney, and Anja Wittkowski. "Some Reasons Why Patients Suffering From Chronic Schizophrenia Fail to Continue in Psychological Treatment." Behavioral and Cognitive Psychotherapy 26 (1998): 177-81. Print.
Turkington, D & Dudley, R 2006, ‘Cognitive-behavioral therapy for schizophrenia: A review,’ Focus, vol. 4, pp. 223-233.
I will first talk about the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. One of the most occurring positive symptoms is hallucinations. Hallucinations are false perceptions, inaccuracies that affect a person's senses and cause us to hear, see, taste, touch, or smell what others do not. Some people with schizophrenia will hear voices that can be reassuring and yet they can be very menacing. Allot of times these voices lead people to hurt themselves or just do abnormal things. Hallucinations, usually the same ones over and over, take control of a person and leave them feeling victimized.
...ients that suffer severe symptoms. The most common treatment is a combination of medicine and therapy. Where the patient engages in individual psychotherapy with a therapist, rehabilitation, family education, or self help groups. These therapies usually help people cope with schizophrenia and its effects. At this time there is no cure for schizophrenia, there are very effective treatments and medications. Research is being conducted to help scientists understand the disorder better and is being used to try to treat schizophrenia permanently. The only way this is possible is with the use of new treatments, such as new experimental drugs and electrotherapy. No treatments today are preventative nor do they permanently “cure” schizophrenia, but we can look to the bright future for the development of a new treatment option that could potentially fully cure schizophrenia.
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.
Other than relieving the negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia, it is imperative to integrate these patients into the society via Cognitive Remediation therapy (CRT). CRT has been defined as a behavioural training-based intervention that aims to improve cognitive processes (attention, memory, executive function, social cognition or metacognition) with the goal of durability and generalisation (Cognitive Remediation Experts Workshop (CREW), Florence, April 2010). Cognitive remediation strategies can be split into two main models: “compensatory” and “restorative” . The “compensatory” treatments try to eradicate or to bypass the specific cognitive deficit, using the patient’s residual cognitive abilities with or without the community
Schizophrenia is found in one percent of the popluation. The most prolific impairment caused by schizophrenia is the affect it has on a peson's mind. Both environmentally and socially schizophrenia disrupts thought processes, making it difficult for a person suffering from the disorder to rationalize. Common symptoms of schizophrenia include: delusions, inconsistent interpretation of reality, and altered perception. Being diagnosed with schizophrenia increases the likelihood of suicide. Individuals also will often suffer from depression. People suffering from schizophrenia find it difficult to make good judgements.