Exploring Schizophrenia Essay

Schizophrenia is a serious debilitating mental illness in which the victim is afflicted with bizarre delusions and prominent hallucinations. The delusions are profoundly invalid beliefs, and the hallucinations are equally invalid perceptions. There is also a disordering of the reasoning process, disordered emotional expression, and loss of motivation for work and social living. Typically, the illness starts in adolescence or early adulthood and, if untreated, usually worsens with age. (Lickey, Gordon, 1991)

Schizophrenia is a complex psychotic disorder evident by impaired thinking, emotions, judgment and behaviors. The person’s grasp of reality may be so disordered that they are unable to filter sensory stimuli and may have intense perceptions of sounds, colors, and other features of their environment. Although there are different levels of severity in symptoms, the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine (Fundukian, Ed., 2014) states that schizophrenia may typically interfere with a person 's ability to think clearly and to know the difference between reality and fantasy. People with schizophrenic symptoms have hallucinations and delusions, and often have difficulty with everyday life. It is a complicated disease that is not well understood and carries significant stigma for its sufferers.

Schizophrenia is the most commonly diagnosed psychotic disorder (Steel, 2012), affecting 1 out of every 100 hundred people on average (Taurier & Wykes, 2004). Symptoms of the disorder include positive symptoms, which are auditory and visual hallucinations, as well as disordered patterns of thought such as delusions (Taurier & Wykes, 2004). Auditory hallucinations are the most common positive symptom, and often come in the form of voices (Steel, 2012). Delusions, which are the most common symptom of schizophrenia, involve a false belief that exists despite evidence being available that suggests otherwise (Steel, 2012).

Imagine being diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia. Imagine having no control over the voices in your head or the hallucinations that seem as if you are having a nightmare when you are actually awake. Imagine feeling scared and hopeless because your mind is out of touch with reality. Imagine being given the prognosis “grave” meaning that, best case scenario, you would live in board and care the rest of your life with a possibility of working menial jobs. How would you cope with that? Would you give up? Or would you try to work through it? Hundreds of people are diagnosed with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia every year. As one can infer, the only way a person suffering from a mental illness can become healthy again is through having psychiatric help which can be nearly impossible to find in some states. More specifically, Iowa has recently been suffering from a shortage……….. Even though Iowa has had a major decline in the number of mental institute beds available, this should be changed so that people battling mental illness are treated until they are healthy enough to live independently within society.

Schizophrenia is an illness that affects an estimated 3.2 million people in America alone (Nemade). Often, people have scattered reactions when they hear the word “schizophrenia.” Some may associate this word with uncontrollable actions that could potentially cause harm to those around them. People may think of serial killers, rapists, or any form of negative archetype seen in the media. According to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), schizophrenia is diagnosed if the patient experiences delusions, hallucinations, and/or disorganized speech for more than a month. Delusions include, but are not limited to, the belief you are going to be harassed or harmed, belief environmental cues are directed at oneself, belief

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that affects an estimated 3.2 million people in America alone (Nemade). Often, people have scattered reactions when they hear the word “schizophrenia.” Some may associate this word with uncontrollable actions that could potentially cause harm to those around them. People may think of serial killers, rapists, or any form of negative archetype seen in the the media. According to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), schizophrenia is characterized by a patient experiencing delusions, hallucinations, and/or disorganized speech for more than a month. Delusions include, but are not limited to, the belief one is going to be harassed or harmed, environmental cues are directed at oneself,

Schizophrenia is one of the most treacherous brain disorders that affect many people in the world today. It is very difficult for someone to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Most people with this disorder are considered disabled because daily life as a normal person is almost impossible. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, people with schizophrenia may hear voices that other people don’t hear, and they also may think other people are trying to hurt them. Sometimes they don’t make any sense when they talk. Depending on the patient, schizophrenia can vary from mild to severe. There are many symptoms that coincide with schizophrenia. Some of these symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, disordered thinking, and emotional unresponsiveness. There are many risk factors of schizophrenia such as age, gender, intelligence, and culture. Schizophrenia is not considered a psychological disorder, but a brain disease. Some doctors may assume that the brain is not able to process information correctly. A person’s genetics, physiological and social, and their environment may factor in to what can trigger schizophrenia. This is an unfortunate and debilitating disorder, however there are many therapies available to help with this disease.

Schizophrenia is often a misunderstood disorder. With many disorders individuals can at least empathize because in some form or another they can relate them to something; but, Schizophrenia has symptoms that make it harder for others to understand, such as hearing voices that are not there or speaking sentences that have no meaning (Oltmann & Emery, 2014). These patients can have misconceived thoughts of others around them too. The name Schizophrenia and the media often only enhance our misunderstandings of the disorder (Morgan, J., & Morgan, C., 2010).

It has been said that people with Schizophrenia have hallucinations and Delusions. “Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects the way the person acts, thinks, and sees the world” (“Schizophrenia” 1). This disease makes the person live in fear and horror from how much it controls the person’s head. There are many signs and symptoms of Schizophrenia. The five signs of Schizophrenia are: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, and the negative symptoms. There are also different types of Schizophrenia. The three types are: Paranoid Schizophrenia, disorganized Schizophrenia, and Catatonic Schizophrenia. Each of these different kinds of Schizophrenia has a different affect on people and each one has a different explanation.

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that effects the way an individual experiences the world. The disorder is characterized by psychotic, positive symptoms, deficit, negative symptoms, and cognitive impairment (Hung Choy Wong & Van Tol, 2003). Positive symptoms are expressed as delusions, hallucinations and/or disorganized thoughts. Delusions are beliefs that are false, for example, your neighbor Joe starts to believe that he is the president of the United States of America. Hallucinations are perceptions, any form, that are false; the more common are visual and auditory. For example, your other neighbor Donnie starts to see and communicate with a white bunny rabbit named Frank. Disorganized thoughts can be seen

rapidly from one unrelated topic to the next. They may make up their own words

Delusions are one of the most common symptoms to schizophrenia. Delusions are false beliefs that the patient believes is true. An example is when the patient believes someone is following them or “out to get them”. Just like schizophrenia, delusions also have subtypes. The first subtype is erotomanic which is when they believe that someone is in love with them and they will go through many obstacles just to try to contact them. The next subtype is grandiose. Grandiose is when the person believes that they are famous or have a lot of power over others. The persecution subtype is when they feel that someone is against them or spreading rumors about them. The forth subtype is jealousy, and is when the patient believes that their spouse isn’t being committed to the relationship. The final subtype to delusions is somatic. The patient believes that there is

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.

"Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. It is a complex, long-term medical illness, affecting about 1% of Americans" (NAMI). Schizophrenia has many causes, symptoms, and treatments and affects a wide variety of people. While it may be hard to diagnose the cases that are can receive treatment to help with their worst symptoms.

Schizophrenia has been described as severe disturbances in thoughts that affect the loss of contact with reality (Ward, 2015). A key characteristic of this severe brain disorder includes hallucinations (illusionary perceptions that are not shared by others, i.e. sensory hallucinations, namely auditory) (Ward, 2015). In order to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, one must show instances of both positive and negative symptoms along with their impaired ability to live a normal functioning life (Ward, 2015). In fact, 60%-70% of schizophrenic patients meet the criteria for hallucinations (Jardri, Pouchet, Pins, & Thomas, 2011). Even though hallucinations can include any of the five senses, Audio Verbal Hallucinations (AVH) is the most common (Jardri et al., 2011). It is widely known that at least in 25% of patients, who experience hallucinations are also resistant to medications resulting in the decrease of quality of life for such individuals (Jardri et al., 2011; Sommer et al., 2008). To add on, therapeutic treatments for despairing symptoms of schizophrenia are seldom.