Is Schizophrenia A Mental Health Disorder?

Although schizophrenia may come off as an interesting and unique disorder, it also relates to the Emotional, Social, and Intellectual dimensions of Health and Wellness. Schizophrenia is an disorder that affects a person’s ability to think, feel and behave clearly. The emotional dimension of the wellness wheel is described as the ability to understand ourselves and cope with the challenges life can bring. Also, the ability to acknowledge and share feelings of fear, sadness or stress; hope, love, joy and happiness in a productive manner contributes to our emotional wellness. This connects to schizophrenia because when you have this disorder it perceives you to imagine situations that aren’t actually happening. Usually people diagnosed with this

Symptoms in this category include hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders, and movement disorders. When first thinking of Schizophrenia, hallucinations come to mind. Patients that have the hallucinations see things that are not really there. These things they are seeing could put themselves in danger. Negative symptoms are when your normal emotions and behaviors are far from normal. The “Flat affect”, enjoying everyday life, difficulty staring and continuing activities, and reduced speaking are all symptoms of negative symptoms. The “Flat affect” is when the patient is not able to express themselves emotionally as they could before. Lastly, cognitive symptoms are different for each patient. For some patients, they may be subtle while for others they are quite serious to the point where they can learn something and then forget it within the next few minutes. The symptoms include struggling with making decisions, trouble with paying attention, and having a difficult time remembering things. A lot of patients tend to deal with suicidal thoughts causing the lifespan of these patients to shorten. Most times, the illness will get the best of them and they will eventually commit

According to NAMI (), schizophrenia is a long term mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, make decisions, and relate to others, impairing a person from functioning to their full potential when left untreated. For these persons affected, it is many times difficult to distinguish what is real from what is not. “Unfortunately, no single simple course of treatment exists.” Research has linked schizophrenia to a multitude of possible causes” (NAMI).

In regards to the positive symptoms, these include delusions of grandeur, which is when a person believes they have a special ability or feel as if they are better than everyone else. Delusions are the most commonly experienced symptom. Hallucinations are the second most experienced symptom under positive symptoms (Andreasen P.381). Hallucinations are best described as “The experience of sensory events without any input from the surrounding environment” (Barlow P.473). Hallucinations include people hearing voices telling them things or hearing sounds that only occur to them.

There is a considerable amount of different concepts that can be used when thinking about schizophrenia; unfortunately, since it continues to be a misunderstood disorder, there also exist numerous misconceptions about the schizophrenia. The most common misconceptions deal with the treatment options for schizophrenia, the potential recovery rate, and the ability of people who are diagnosed with the disorder or symptoms to live productive and meaningful lives. Though there are no permanent cures to treat the disease, there are certain medications that help manage the symptoms in order to help people lead healthy and satisfied lives. The recovery rate for the disease is also

Changes in key brain functions, such as awareness, emotion, and behavior lead experts to conclude that the brain is the biological site of schizophrenia. Some important risk factors to consider are genetics, viral infections, fetal malnutrition, and stress during early life, childhood abuse or trauma, and drugs.

Schizophrenia is a disease of the mind. It effects all races and ages. There are many dugs that can help treat Schizophrenia, but there is no cure for it. People that suffer from Schizophrenia can be helped by receiving psychological treatments along with a strong support group.

Scientists believe genetics can pose the greater risk for getting Schizophrenia. Here are a few risk factors:

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder that affects the way an individual thinks, feels, and acts (MHA, 2017). Diagnosed individuals have trouble deciphering what is real or what their mind is making up. This is caused by hallucinations and delusions with sight and auditory. Individuals full heartedly believe the hallucinations are real and it may be hard for loved ones to watch. Social situations are difficult for patients diagnosed because social norms are harder to express. It is hard to hold a relationship with peers due to the symptoms they deal with everyday making it hard to interact in social norms. The cause is still unclear to how someone obtains schizophrenia. Although it’s unsure scientist know this is not

Schizophrenia is severe disorder where there is a loss of contact with reality. It is mostly thought and emotion associated. This mental illness is quite common and has no cure. People who have schizophrenia are considers to have two minds. Many people with schizophrenia suffer and need to attend mental institutes, but today people have been functioning better with periodical hospital visits only. Most researchers consider schizophrenia a brain disorder. There is some evidence that suggests that schizophrenia begins in the womb.

Schizophrenia has no actual definition, but it describes a series of events and actions that a person ususally experiences. Schizophrenia is a psychosis. ( Smith, 1992, p.23-25 ) Psychosis describes a disorder where a group of mental disturbances happen. Schizophrenia is described to be a psychosis because it causes the victim to lose the ability to be in touch with society and its functions. For example, a person may begin to "see" animals that are not there, or may begin to characterize themselves as a famous person from the past such as Queen Elizabeth or King Edward. ( Kvarnes, Parloff, 1983, p.220-223)

Similar to other mental disorders, the causes of schizophrenia are not fully understood. This is because there are multiple causes for the disorder, such as genetic, behavioral, and other factors. Furthermore, researchers believe that brain chemistry and the environment contribute to the disorder’s development as well. Problems with specific neurotransmitters called dopamine and glutamate can also contribute to schizophrenia. After thorough research scientists found that although people may have the disorder, they may not notice or experience any symptoms for years.

2011). Varcarolis et al. 2006 describe positive symptoms of schizophrenia as ‘florid psychotic symptoms’ ‘as they capture attention’. Cognitive deficits lay primarily within the domains of memory and language affecting mood and behaviour (Elder et al. 2009). Positive symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions, hallucinations and sever thought process disturbances and have an acute onset (Elder et al. 2009).Varcarolis, Carson and Shoemaker (2006) state that a patient experiencing a delusion is convinced that what they perceive is real and consequently the patients thinking often reflects feelings of great fear, isolation and trust issues. Additionally Elder et al. (2009) state that cognitive deficits are considered psychotic symptoms and that behaviours, perceptions and beliefs shown in a person having an exacerbation of schizophrenia are not consistent with normal human experience.

Even with all the criteria for Schizophrenia that I described above, still there is no apparent reason as to what the risk factor of Schizophrenia is. Which lead to my research to indentify certain certain Risk factors associated with with Schizophrenia. During my research, I was able to discover many risks factors, but I chose to only discuss the few that are very common through most

These symptoms are: Delusions which are strange beliefs that are not based in reality. Another positive symptom are hallucinations which makes people hear voices, feel touched when they are not touched and see things that are not really there.