An Existential Psychiatrist Who Suffered From Schizophrenia Essay

From a sociocultural viewpoint would suggest that maybe his race, as well as his country, and social environment could play a role in his schizophrenia also people labeling him as not normal could have played a role in a self fulfilling prophecy. Sociocultural views may also suggest that family stresses may have been a contribution to his schizophrenia.

Valerie believes that the last four years of her marriage are what brought about her development of paranoid schizophrenia. During her last four years of marriage Valerie experienced a great deal of stress and strain to keep her marriage together. Because Valerie did not believe in divorce she turned to her religion and became deeply involved in her church. Her first delusion began during this period when she believed bad people were infiltrating her church and trying to destroy the

     In the film “ A Beautiful Mind” John Nash experiences a few different positive symptoms. The first of these positive symptoms are seen through the hallucinations John has of having a room -mate while at Princeton. This room- mate continues to stay “in contact” with John through out his adult life and later this room- mate’s niece enters Johns mind as another coinciding hallucination. Nash’s other hallucination is Ed Harris, who plays a government agent that seeks out Nash’s intelligence in the field of code- breaking.

Today, scientists at the University of Iowa are studying abroad how people suffering from the mental disorder, schizophrenia, may have less brain tissue than those who do not have the disorder. Schizophrenia deeply affects the brain and causes individuals to lose touch with reality and have unorganized thoughts, troubled perceptions and unsuitable emotions and actions. “Schizo” means split and “phrenia” means mind, however this does not mean that this is a split mind or personality disorder, like most people commonly mistake this as. In order to understand this disorder, we need to take a look at the actual condition and how it is defined, apart from other disorders, speculated causes, such as genes from

Robert Oxnam published an autobiography called A Fractured Mind in order to educate more people about his illness and to introduce a deeper understanding of Dissociative Identity Disorder. In an article written by Bruce Weber of the New York Times, Oxnam explained how writing the book was a timely challenge because each of his alter personalities wrote their chapter of the story in a first-person narrative (Weber, 2005). The reader learns about Dissociative Identity Disorder by being introduced to Oxnam’s alters, watching their interrelationships develop and recognizing the integration of his fragmented mind.

Schizophrenia, although affecting only one percent of the population, has a direct affect on society today. This disease, if left untreated, poses threat to health care professionals (including psychiatrists), law enforcement personnel, and family members responsible for the care and support of the schizophrenia patient. This paper addresses the causes of schizophrenia and the myths surrounding this complicated ailment, the affect of untreated or misunderstood aspects of schizophrenia has on society and important crisis intervention strategies for those in close contact to victims of schizophrenia.

In this week’s readings chapter twelve is about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder in which personal, social, and occupational functioning deteriorate as a result of strange perceptions, unusual emotions, and motor abnormalities. This disorder is very interesting, but also kind of scary to me. They literally end up in their own world, losing contact with reality. With that, they also experience hallucinations or delusions, which can cause them to do abnormal, possibly dangerous actions. These symptoms must last six months or more before the person can be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It will affect 1 out of 100 people in the world during ones lifetime. This disorder, unlike many others, is just as common among men and women,

The psychodynamic explanation of the psychological viewpoint is based upon Freud’s theory that schizophrenia develops from two psychological processes: regression to a pre-ego stage and efforts to reestablish ego control (Comer, 2005). Freud believed that symptoms

Schizophrenia is a mental illness which affects millions of people throughout the world. Scientists have begun to understand more and more about the possible causes, predisposing factors, types, and possible treatments for schizophrenia. (Torrey, 1995) It is very rare for schizophrenic symptoms to appear before the age of 12 but it does occur. Recently, there has been a growing interest in childhood schizophrenia. It is less than one-sixtieth as common as the adult-onset type but the characteristics are very similar. Childhood schizophrenia also tends to be harder to treat and to have a worse prognosis than the adult-onset form. (Rapoport, 1997)

Schizophrenia is a life-long disorder that affects about one percent of the population (Mueser & McGurk, 2004). The cause of this mental illness is still unclear. Studies have suggested that Schizophrenia does not arise from one factor but from a combination of genetic, environmental, and social factors (Liddle, 1987). People diagnosed with Schizophrenia struggle to deal with a multitude of symptoms that make it difficult to function (Mueser & McGurk, 2004). Antipsychotic medications are a popular treatment of the symptoms of Schizophrenia (Mueser & McGurk, 2004). Research is constantly being done to develop these medications to enhance the quality of life of those diagnosed with Schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia as a Biological Disorder As well as the biological approaches there are physiological, psychological and environmental explanations. New theories of schizophrenia are constantly being developed each having their own advantages and disadvantages. How do we know however, which one is correct? The biological explanation suggests that schizophrenia is produced by an unfortunate combination of genes or is due to physical problems in the brain.

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)

Often psychiatrist treat patients with schizophrenia disorders who are religious or have some form of spirituality. The focus of the psychiatric care has been shifted from treating mental illness to caring for people who manage their own mental illness. Therefore, it is necessary to include an emphasis on the spirituality and religiousness of those with chronic mental illness and the role that it plays in their care. Spirituality and religiousness has been show as a powerful psychological and social resource for mental health and liability.

With the relationship between schizophrenia and the memory established, it is possible to infer that because schizophrenic patients have a depleted memory capacity, they may also have a reduced sense of self. This may be validated by an article published in the “Journal of the Schizophrenia International Research Society.” Within the text, the author quotes Artaud, an influential French poet, saying that: “I felt the ground under my thought crumble, and I am led to consider the terms I use without the support of their inner meaning, their personal substratum. And even more than that, the point at which this substratum seems to connect with my life suddenly becomes strangely sensitive and potential (Lysaker and Lysaker, 2010).” Similarly, another

Robert David Laing (most famously known as R. D. Laing) was a psychiatrist who was born in Scotland, he spent the majority of his life writing solely about mental health with a particular focus on psychosis. Despite being a psychiatrist, he was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement (although he denied this) and despite struggling from his own demons along the way, episodic alcoholism and clinical depression, which he self-diagnosed himself with, he continued to contribute a lot to psychiatry within his lifetime. His contributions to mental health and his reasoning’s often clashed with other psychiatrists, such as Gregory Bateson, Donald Jackson and Jay Haley, they believed that people with schizophrenia acted out of the ordinary such