Mental Illness : A Type Of Psychotic Disorder Essay

Throughout the course of history, society has tried to explain and diagnose the abnormal behavior of individuals with mental illnesses. Originally, folklore and other concepts dating back to ancient times, influenced societies to define and label those individuals that expressed abnormal patterns of behavior as mad, insane and mentally ill (Henderson, 2009). Treatment and legal proceedings for such individuals often incorporated cruel and unusual punishments and in some cases even death. Over time, societal views on the available treatments and legal proceedings for the mentally ill have changed drastically. Legal defense for those with mental illnesses, known as the insanity defense became available as far back as King Henry III’s reign over England (Ahia, 2009). The insanity defense is often used interchangeably with: the insanity plea as well as the phrase “not guilty” by reason of insanity. The accepted use of the insanity plea by the defendant, an individual whom is accused of a crime, is determined by the mental health evaluations of the court’s legal standards and or by mental health professionals. The issue of mental illness and the insanity defense becomes controversial when those with mental illnesses commit heinous crimes and use the “not guilty” by reason of insanity defense. The public fears that the individuals are using a questionable and concerning defense to be pardoned for committing violent crimes and that those individuals who are found not guilty and

In the movie A Beautiful Mind, which primarily takes place in the 1950s, John Nash exhibits signs of schizophrenia. He shows both positive and negative signs of the disorder. However, the movie does not portray all symptoms of schizophrenia accurately. Throughout Nash’s life-long battle with his illness, his family is dramatically affected. Overall, the movie implements a positive stigma of the disorder. While John Nash’s journey with his illness is not an entirely accurate depiction, the movie gives a positive light and awareness to schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, decision making, and relate to others. It’s a long-term medical illness affecting 1% of Americans. The causes of schizophrenia include genetics, environment, brain chemistry, and substance abuse. Schizophrenia occurs roughly in 10%of people who have a first-degree relative with the disorder such as a parent or sibling. ("NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | What is Schizophrenia?," n.d.) “Problems with certain brain chemicals, including neurotransmitters called dopamine and glutamate, may contribute to schizophrenia”.

Schizophrenia has been associated with the dysregulation of many neurotransmitter systems. Large amounts dopamine is the oldest and most widely accepted theory of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and stems from identification of dopamine D2 receptor blockade as the mechanism of action of antipsychotics. Dopamine D2 binding sites are increased in a person with schizophrenia, which contributes to cognitive impairment. The modern day understanding is suggested that a hyperactive mesolimbic and a hypoactive mesocortical dopamine system underlie the 'positive ' and 'negative ' symptoms that are seen in schizophrenia. Serotonin, glutamate, GABA and acetylcholine dysregulation have also been implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia, in addition to dopamine. Glutamatergic signaling is attenuated in schizophrenia and is distinguished by a loss of NMDA receptor-mediated excitatory neurotransmission. GABA levels are also attenuated due to down regulation of GABA transporter (GAT) gene expression. “There is a concordant up regulation of GABAA receptors, which may contribute to the alterations in neural synchrony and consequently working memory impairment” (tocris.com, 2015).

Schizophrenia is characterized as a chronic mental disorder that affects a person’s thoughts, emotions, and behavior (Bartol and Bartol, 2014). Individuals with schizophrenia experience positive psychotic symptoms that consist of hallucinations or delusions. Negative symptoms may also arise such as a diminished emotional expression known as flat affect, as well as poor attention and speech production (Bartol and Bartol, 2014). These symptoms are further categorized into five subtypes that include paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual categories. A person is diagnosed with one of these subtypes depending on how severe their most symptoms are. It affects both men and women equally but tends to appear earlier in men than in women (Bartol and Bartol, 2014). To this day, it is not known what causes schizophrenia and remains to be misunderstood.

Merriam – Webster’s Medical dictionary describes mental illnesses as “any of a broad range of medical conditions that are marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, or emotions to impair normal psychological functioning and cause marked distress or disability and that are typically associated with a disruption in normal thinking, feeling, mood, behavior, interpersonal interactions, or daily functioning.” Today almost more than sixty million people in America have some form of mental illness, but only few actually seek treatment.One of the many mental illnesses is Schizophrenia, a very serious disorder which affects how a person acts, feels, and thinks. Some people with the illness cannot even tell the difference between things that are real and things that are imaginary. In the United States at least 2.2 million people suffer from schizophrenia .Many famous people such as Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo, and Abraham Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd Lincoln suffered from schizophrenia. This essay is going to discuss the many things that happen when you are Schizophrenic and how you can treat this horrible mental illness.

Many people have ignored the illness that affects about one percent of the population. Schizophrenia is the mental illness that I’m referring to. Schizophrenia is a psychotic illness which is can be never-ending, severe, and brain distorting. I’ve grown interest in this particular topic for several reasons. One influence came from my interesting aunt. The problem started when I noticed the farfetched information my Aunt relayed to me.

by the brain to other parts of the body are not normal in people with

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

The mental health disorder was identified by the german physician Dr. Emile Kraepelin in 1887 as “dementia praecox” (early dementia), and the term schizophrenia was first introduced by Eugen Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist in 1911, formed from the Greek schizo (split) and phrene (mind) to describe the disruption of cognition and emotion.

For decades, the world was captivated by a particular case of schizophrenia. John Nash was a nobel-prize winning mathematician who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his 30s. After his massive contribution to the math world, he began to experience paranoia and delusions (Rettner). While schizophrenia had been understood for more than one hundred years, Nash's diagnosis drew a lot of attention to the mental disorder and truly helped open the world’s eyes to the reality of it. The mental illness is often misinterpreted so it is first critical to understand the basics. Once schizophrenia is understood, patients will receive the correct treatment and learn how to cope with it.

Could you imagine waking up one day realizing you not only lost everything you thought you once had, but realizing they never existed? Schizophrenia is a “Devastating psychotic disorder that may involve characteristic disturbances in thinking, perception, speech, emotions, and behavior.” (Barlow & Durand, 2015, 2012). Meaning that it’s a mental disorder that completely allows your mind to be in an altered state, making it almost impossible to tell the difference between the real truth and the truth they have come up with. If you are anything like me, its hard to fully grasp the idea that your mind has these capabilities, with the help of the movie “A Beautiful Mind” it allows us to see this disorder in action.

There are many myths surrounding Schizophrenia (Owen, 2007). Almost all of them are very misleading. Most of these myths are outlined below with the

[b]" [i] God loves all creatures.[/i] Can you honestly say you believe that?"[/b] If god loved humans as the Priest thought the celestial being did why would he create monsters capable of devouring them? It was a nice theory it really was and who was she to pop his bubble. People regardless of species would always choose the path that got them further in life and that path was littered with violence and corruption especially now that the world's power had gone from human to vampire. Violence and power went hand in hand and she would have gotten nowhere without either of them if it was her lot in life to continue that never-ending loop of bloodshed then she would proudly do so.

The film “A Beautiful Mind” is about the life of Nobel prize winner John Nash Jr who suffered with schizophrenia. The movie starts as Nash has entered graduate school at Princeton, he was a mathematical genius who made a discovery early I his career of an original idea that helped him earn international acclaim. The socially awkward genius soon found himself on a painful journey of self-discovery. John Nash made up a life that was not real, his friends and secrete job were also not real. He could not distinguish between what was real, imaginary and made up in his head. His diagnosis of schizophrenia interfered with his everyday life and overall caused him to break until he decided to ignore what would forever haunt him.