Essay Biological, Social and Psychological Causes of Schizophrenia

The characteristics of Schizophrenia have often been confused with those of other diseases. Such characteristics are: Decline from a previous level of functioning, disturbances of thought and speech, delusions, hallucinations, and withdrawal. All of these symptoms are sure signs of schizophrenia, but they do vary between people and may also change over periods of time. There are positive symptoms which

Upon diagnosis, each subtype has different signs and symptoms. Paranoid schizophrenia involves an individual having paranoid delusions and hallucinations with the exception of having disorganized symptoms (Castle & Buckley, 2008, p. 10). This depicts that certain symptoms individuals with paranoid schizophrenia may have consist of strongly believing in certain ideas that in actuality are false. In addition, they may tend to hear sounds or senses that come to life only in their minds. They start to believe somebody is trying to harm them in some type of way. This builds paranoia within them, which contributes to their mental nature. Disorganized schizophrenia involves prominent disturbances in an individual’s thought stream (Castle and Buckley, 2008, p. 10). This illustrates that individuals with disorganized schizophrenia display rigid patterns of behavior in their lifetime. They commonly lose their train of thought and tend to be emotionally indecisive. Certain symptoms that disorganized schizophrenics have consist of showing disorganized speech and behavior. This indicates that people who cannot fully express their feelings or often disrupt daily activities may be at risk of having disorganized schizophrenia. Catatonic schizophrenia involves somebody having protruding motoric disturbances (Castle & Buckley, 2008, p. 10). This suggests that individuals with catatonic

Disorganized Schizophrenia is a very specific type of schizophrenia. This type of Schizophrenia has disorganized speech and behavior as its most common symptom. People with this type can be inappropriate for a given situation due to the way they verbally express their thoughts, manner of dressing, and other bizarre behaviors. A person can distinguish an individual who is suffering from disorganized schizophrenia because they tend to dress unusually, perform peculiar gestures, or make awkward communication. Paranoid schizophrenia is characterized by hallucinations and delusions, either of persecution, grandeur or jealousy. A person with this type of schizophrenia still retains their cognitive and effective functioning. Catatonic schizophrenia is very similar to catatonia. They exhibit waxy flexibility or catalepsy wherein they hold a position for a long period of time. Catatonic schizophrenics have a tendency to mimic other either by echopraxia or echolalia. A person with this type of schizophrenia will either by hyperactive or immobile. Residual schizophrenia is when one will have symptoms of schizophrenia who, after psychotic schizophrenic episode will no longer be psychotic. Some symptoms may still remain with the person who suffered from residual schizophrenia. Symptoms may include emotional blunting, eccentric behavior, illogical thinking, and social withdrawal may come back from time to time. Undifferentiated schizophrenia is when a person has a presence of prominent psychotic symptoms that are not classified as catatonic, disorganized, or paranoid. All schizophrenics will fall under one or more of these

Schizophrenia is characterized by delusions thinking and hallucinations. Schizophrenia affects more than two million Americans. The researchers pieced together the steps by which genes can increased a person risk of developing schizophrenia. This relates to the Biopsychology class because the causes of schizophrenia have two factors, the first factor that play a major role is the risk that the researchers found is the natural process called synaptic pruning. The brain sheds weak or redundant connections between neurons as it matures. During adolescence and early adulthood, this activity take place in the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is a section of the brain where thinking and planning take place.

Schizophrenia is classified as a severe disorder of thought and emotion associated with a loss of contact with reality. Individuals with schizophrenia can have difficulties with attention, thinking, language, emotion, and relationships. For a while, researchers have been wondering what causes schizophrenia and if the cause has more to do with psychological issues or genetics.

Schizophrenia is severe mental disorder that causes a distortion of reality that is commonly known to have abnormalities of brain the brain structure coupled with unpredictable and strange emotions, behavior, and thinking. It accounts for the largest percentage of people hospitalized with a mental disorder. (#1) There are five main types of schizophrenia that have been observed. The first is the undifferentiated type which a patient lacks emotional depth and external interests and relationships begin to deteriorate, they begin to show stereotypical or simple behavior. Second is the disorganized form where someone may lose ability to perform everyday tasks, display peculiar behavior, and give inappropriate responses. Next is the paranoid type typically showing up later in life and consists mainly of hallucinations, illogical thought process and delusions. The catatonic form of schizophrenia is characterized by bizarre motor movements. The patient can become immobilized for periods of time for no apparent reason or he/she can have purposeless, excessive movements. Lastly is the residual type typically less severe because psychotic symptoms have vanished or become very limited. (#3) Now keep in mind every person with schizophrenia has different symptoms and they are constantly changing so classification varies person to person.

Biological Dysfunction as a Cause for Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder, which is characterised by a number of both positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are behaviours which are present although should be absent. Examples of these are thought disorders resulting in difficulty in arranging thoughts logically, jumping from one topic of conversation to another and speaking random words. Other positive symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions whereby the effected person may feel that people are plotting against them and trying to kill them as well as hallucinations whereby the schizophrenic person hears voices in their head telling them to do things.

There are three main types of schizophrenia, including paranoid schizophrenia is when the person has "false beliefs" that someone is plotting against them. Disorganized schizophrenia is someone whose behavior is disturbed and has no purpose, inappropriate emotions, and disorganized speech. Catatonic schizophrenia is when the person cannot move, speak, or respond. They may maintain a pose, sometimes for extended periods of time.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects about 1% of the population world wise between the ages of 16-30 (Nordqvist 2016). The word Schizophrenia means, “Split mind” but it does not cause a split personality and was first introduced by a Swiss man named Eugen Bleuler (Simon & Zieve, 2013). Schizophrenia has different subtypes, including Paranoid-type, Disorganized-type, Catatonic-type, Undifferentiated-type, and Residual-type (Simon & Zieve, 2013). Men develop the symptoms in their early teenage years and women typically develop the symptoms in their late twenties (Konkel 2015). Researchers showed that Schizophrenia brains have enlarged lateral ventricles, their brain volume is smaller, the cerebral cortex is reduced, the medial temporal lobes that deal with memory is smaller, and there are fewer connections between brain cells(Cazaban 2003; Goldberg 2016). Individuals who have Schizophrenia say they hear voices, they believe someone is controlling their mind; they hallucinate, and believe someone is planning to cause harm to them, which makes them agitated, upset, and causes them to stay to themselves (Nordqvist 2016; NIMH 2015). Schizophrenia interferes with cognition and emotion that causes the individual to lose the capability of caring for themselves (Chien et al., 2013). The brain regions that are affected are the prefrontal cortex, the basal ganglia and the limbic system (Chakraborty 2015). The activity in the basal ganglia is increased, but the connection

There are actually many different types of schizophrenia but these four are the most familiar. The three types of symptoms would be positive, negative and cognitive. The different types can be called subtypes because they are characterized by their effects or symptoms. They all can change or occur during different time period meaning that the schizophrenia a person has can progress and even change. The most common type would be the paranoid schizophrenia. This form of schizophrenia has side effects that would include hallucinations and delusions. Hallucinations include things that a person can see, hear, smell and even feel. Most of the time they hear these voices and they are dark and creepy. What makes that worse is the fact that a lot of people don’t understand where they are coming from. It can change from being in your mind to an object or even a person or animal. With the subtype people usually can function normally but because of the hallucinations and delusions. This makes them see and hear things which is what confuses them. The thoughts and the things they see and hear are negative mostly. It also creates these thoughts and beliefs that are not true at all. Because of the symptoms people who suffer from schizophrenia have these behaviors or emotions that are usually anger, anxiety, persecuted or even suspiciousness. But because this type usually

Schizophrenia is a long-term mental disorder which is the breakdown of thought, emotion, behavior which leads to faulty perception, abnormal actions or feelings, and withdrawal from reality which turns into delusion and fantasy. One with schizophrenia may find little to no pleasure in life. They might not enjoy the things they used to, or they just stop doing those things completely. They also might not take care of themselves. They might not bother to do laundry, or shower, or things of that nature. One with schizophrenia also might have hallucinations or delusions. They might think that people are out to get them, or they hear and see things that aren't real. They also might have other problems with how they think, or be very scared for no apparent reason.

Four major types of schizophrenia include, catatonic, paranoid, hebephrenic, and simple. Simple schizophrenics are characterized by an undevelopment in their personality. This type usually goes unnoticed. A person with this type tend to isolate themselves and lose interest in their surroundings. Their thinking processes are superficial and refer only to permanent situations and things. These type of schizophrenics have emotions that lack depth and have incomplete judgement. A case study showed that a 25 year old patient, Mr. B, did not start doing this actions until age 15. For example, “[H]e began to be more isolated, losing contact with school friends and interacting minimally with his family, eating in his bedroom alone and maintaining poor

Symptoms and signs of schizophrenia will vary, depending on the individual. Some symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, thought disorder, blunted emotion, social withdrawal, cognitive difficulties, unable to experience pleasure, lack of desire to form relationships, and lack of motivation (Nordqvist, 2016). The different types of schizophrenia differ in the person’s inabilities. First type is paranoid schizophrenia where a person feels extremely suspicious, persecuted, or experiences a combination of these emotions. Second type is disorganized schizophrenia where a person is often incoherent in speech and thought, but may not have delusions. Third type is catatonic schizophrenia where a person is withdrawn, mute,

According to Abnormal Psychology, the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association of what mental health professionals classify as mental disorders, "the DSM-IV, lists five characteristics of schizophrenia. They are, delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, and "negative symptoms," meaning a reduction or loss of normal functions such as language and goal-directed behavior. If a person has shown two or more of those signs for at least a month and has noticeably disturbed for at least six months, the diagnosis is schizophrenia"

Of those diagnosed, there are three types of schizophrenic patients: disorganized (characterized by lack of emotion and disorganized speech), catatonic (characterized by reduced movement, rigid posture, or sometimes too much movement), and paranoid (strong delusions or hallucinations). (2)