Moments in Time

A common psychological disorder that causes people to have a very high thought process is called schizophrenia. If someone has this disorder, they would be noticed as schizophrenics. While those without the disorder may face the reality of the word, others schizophrenia will be in their own little word trying to find out the meaning of certain events or they just may be a little frightened. There is a 1.1 percent of young adults eighteen years and older that may have schizophrenia. In order to overcome this “split mind” of any such person and to help gain their sense of disordered life, you must know the symptoms of schizophrenia (1)***. To briefly discuss the symptoms of schizophrenia, they are generally classified as positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive deficits. Positive symptoms are when people have that sense of reality with a little bit of their own world as their psychological behavior. The symptoms are not really supposed to be there in their daily behaviors. Such symptoms are hallucinations when the sense of the real world nowhere near their human thought process. If a person is experience hallucinations, they may be hearing voices that the normal people are not hearing. They could also see things that may not exist to the eyes of other people. Negative symptoms are those signs of decreased or lost of normal functions. People with this classification of negative symptoms do not have any facial expressions and emotions. These are characteristics that normal people have that they are missing. This could be known as the flat affect where people show no emotions and unable to maintain facial expressions. Someone who fits this description may not show the expression of laughing a funny joke is told or they may show that they are mad. Lastly, cognitive symptoms deals with the way of thinking and the ability to hold use their memory systems and make reasonable decisions. (1, 2)***.

There are four types of schizophrenia: disorganized, catatonic, paranoid, and undifferentiated. The first type of schizophrenia is disorganized. When people have this type of disorder, they have an unclear thought process of seeing imaginary things with inability to find meaning in what may be doing on around them. All of the person’s emotions are shaken up into a mixture of different behaviors. Someone could say this person is going crazy if they laughed while the light turns green or if they act childish at an adulthood age. Also, the disorganized schizophrenia can be caused by isolation as the person grew up during the teenager stages. The next type deals with the crazy movements and the inability to control their motor skills; including to not having the full control of what they say since they could be repeating what is being said over and over. People at this level may need a stay-at-home nurse since they may not be able to take care of themselves; especially they are outside of the home. If someone is acting a little bit beyond normal and they are having delusion that may not be true, then that person has paranoid schizophrenia. They may have the delusion that a certain event can be a message that is about their lives or people are plotting to kill them. This call goes against their beliefs and religious views since they have the thought disorder of being the opposite of normal (1)***. The fourth type of schizophrenia is undifferentiated. When someone has this type of schizophrenia, they may not have a couple of characteristics or description of the other types, but they have the symptoms of disorganized behavior, seeing things, having delusions, or any other type of schizophrenia. People of this nature are in a category of their own. (1, 3)***.

There are many different causes of schizophrenia whether they are biological factors or dealing with the mind, and environment. In a biological aspect, those who may have direct relations with someone who already has schizophrenia will most likely have a ten percent chance of getting this disorder where as the general population is one percent. It is rare for someone to attract themselves to schizophrenia since you can not be exposed to it nor pass it on too others, but genetics help influence the disorder to be involved. If a woman is pregnant and is having a baby, stress can raise the hormone cortisol and later in the development of babies can be a cause of this disorder. It is very interesting to see that identical twins have a higher rate of developing schizophrenia. Low oxygen level at birth, exposure to a virus, and sexual abuse can also be leading causes of schizophrenia. The regulation of neurotransmitters can also help the development of this rare disorder since the brain can get too much of dopamine and the lack of glutamate is being released into the body (4)***.

Schizophrenia is treated with different medicines and therapy treatment that meets the patient’s needs. However, to help treat the psychological disordered minded patients there are antipsychotic meds that reduces people from hallucinations, thinking in a way where they could be stalked because of their twisted mind, and help them to become more social. Along with the efforts to take the medicines to treat schizophrenia, there are some side effects such as dry mouth, dizziness, muscle spasm, and abnormal body movements. Psychotherapy helps with patients who are not emotionally stable. If a patient gets treated medicine it is to help control their behavior and lower the schizophrenic symptoms. Not only these affected people have individual sessions with a professional, they can also attend sessions with psychologists and other similar people, schizophrenic people will be able to share their stories and have discussions to help them become more social and gain the skills to act like a normal person. Any type of support group should be recommended in order to keep the person under controlled conditions and “normal” functions (5)***. If the person with schizophrenia gets too crazy and beyond their state of mind, they may get need to check into the hospital for safety reasons and if that does not work, maybe they need to be put into an asylum for those who are paranoid and have delusions. With all of this in mind, the medicines taken help to bring the unbalanced chemicals to a stable stage and psychotherapy helps to treat those with this psychological disorder (6)***.

Sources:

1. King, Laura A. The Science of Psychology.
2. http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=7416
3. http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/schizophrenia-types
4. http://www.helpguide.org/mental/schizophrenia_symptom.htm
5. http://hcpc.uth.tmc.edu/schizophrenia.htm
6. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000928.htm#Treatment