Is Schizophrenia A Serious Mental Disorder?

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 mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behaviour and failure to recognize what is real. Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, auditory hallucinations, reduced social engagement and emotional expression, and inactivity. A person with schizophrenia often hears voices, experiences delusions and hallucinations and may believe thoughts, feelings and actions are controlled or shared by someone else.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the definition of Schizophrenia is “a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves” (2016). In 1887, Dr. Emile Kraepelin was the first to acknowledge Schizophrenia. Patients were having memory loss and not acting like themselves. When studying patients, he believed that it was much like dementia except in this particular case, the disease formed earlier in life. Dr. Kraeplin even named it "dementia praecox" meaning “early dementia”. After more research was conducted on this disease, Eugen Bleuler came to conclusion that this was not even close to dementia. So, in 1911, he changed the name to Schizophrenia.

SCHIZOPHRENIA Schizophrenia, from the Greek word meaning “split mind”, is a mental disorder that causes complete fragmentation in the processes of the mind. Contrary to common belief, schizophrenia does not refer to a person with a split personality or multiple personalities, but rather to a condition which affects the person’s movement, language, and thinking skills. The question of whether schizophrenia is a disease or collection of socially learned actions is still a question in people’ mind. People who are suffering from schizophrenia think and act in their own the world and put themselves in a way that is totally different from the rest of society. In other words, they have lost in touch with the reality. Most schizophrenics accept

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).

Schizophrenia is characterized as a psychotic disease that dramatically affects one 's nervous system to a point of where every day basic functions can be inhibited. It is defined as the loss of contact with the external environment the person is in due to delusional thoughts and hallucinations. Perception and behavior of someone plagued with this disease is notably altered and their actions can become a concern of the people around them. Like many other diseases that affect the nervous system it is not curable at the current time but it can be treated to lessen the signs and symptoms of the disease.

Additional, inferences about the disorder are provided by Whitcomb and Merrell (2013). The authors characterize the symptoms of schizophrenia as delusions that are “typically bizarre and implausible” and pronounced hallucinations such as hearing voices for long periods of time (p. 363). Additional, impairments noted by the authors include “severe disturbances in perception, thought and affect, a severe decline in personal and social functioning, poor personal hygiene, inability to function effectively at school or work, and a severe impairment in social relationships” (Whitcomb and Merrell, 2013 p.363).

The development of schizophrenia can progress slowly or can be a fast, abrupt onset. The onset is usually between the teenage years and mid-thirties. A theory of the PBS channel on what schizophrenia teaches us, states how people become schizophrenic, the genes for schizophrenia can lay dormant until certain circumstances trigger their expression, the diagnosis is mostly based on what the patient reports (Eck, 2014). Each patient presents the onset, signs, and symptoms of schizophrenia in a different way.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that is long-term and affects mostly adults. However, schizophrenia makes the body capable of displaying symptoms early on, possibly around adolescent years. The disorder makes it difficult to distinguish reality often causing a tainted perception of reality. Schizophrenia is defined by its symptoms of irritable feelings, hallucinations, isolation, lack of attention, and rapid thought process. While schizophrenia has no cure, it is treatable and has the ability to be tolerable. The long-term affect it has is the damaging of tissue in the brain, making it a lifetime struggle. Schizophrenia only induces itself on about 1 percent of adults in the world, however; it is still a burdensome disorder. Upon receiving

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to recognize what is real. Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, auditory hallucinations, reduced social engagement and emotional expression, and lack of motivation. Diagnosis is based on observed behavior and the person 's reported experiences. Genetics and early environment, as well as psychological and social processes, appear to be important contributory factors. Some recreational and prescription drugs appear to cause or worsen symptoms. The many possible combinations of symptoms have triggered debate about whether the diagnosis represents a single disorder or a number of separate syndromes. Despite the

In order for schizophrenia to be diagnosed, the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual requires two symptoms to be present for a substantial amount of time during a 30 day period. It also requires major areas of functioning to decrease, with continuous signs for at least six months (Fentress, Moller 1). Three different types of symptoms characterize schizophrenia: positive, negative, and cognitive (Richards 1). Positive symptoms refer to an exaggeration of brain function. This can be characterized by unusual thoughts, hallucinations, and delusions. Hallucinations are things a person sees, hears, smells or feels that no other person can. Hearing “voices” is the most common

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that is thought to be brought on by certain genetic factors as well as environmental ones. It affects the way a person perceives reality. The person diagnosed with schizophrenia will often perceive auditory, visual, kinetic, and olfactory stimuli that aren’t actually present. The disease also affects how the person feels and acts as well.

Although schizophrenia is considered to be one of the newer mental disorders to be recognized, there have been several researchers that have made major declarations as to the cause and depth of this disorder. The first researcher to provide a look into what is now called schizophrenia is Emil Kraepelin (Jablensky, 2012). Prior to Kraepelin’s research, psychologists had begun to describe symptoms that were unlike any of the known mental disorders of the time. Kraepelin saw that many of these symptoms were similar among each other but there were also slight differences in the cases. Kraepelin decided to group all symptoms that were describing similar events under one term, dementia praecox. Throughout his research Kraepelin struggled with finding one root cause that was similar across all patients, so he determined that the essence of this disorder was a notable decline in

Schizophrenia is a very serious, long-term disorder that affects about 1% of the world’s population. It affects people anywhere from twenty years old, to forty-five years old. It is known to be one of the most disabling diseases in this age group. Schizophrenia can break down a person’s behaviors, emotions, and thoughts. People who suffer from schizophrenia usually show very inappropriate displays of their actions and feelings. Sufferers have been known to hear voices, even when there is nobody around them. They have problems controlling their thoughts, and sometimes blurt out things that are very inappropriate. This paper will outline the biological, social, and psychological

Schizophrenia is a universal mental illness which is both complex and devastating. Schizophrenia generally begins in the early stages of life and may lead to lifelong disabilities (Moritz, 2010). The context of this paper shall include an introduction on schizophrenia as well as the reasoning this discipline was chosen. It will include a critiqued research study that will explain how the research was presented. The primary focus on the research study will be a literature review, the methods used, the results found, and a presented discussion.