Schizophrenia in The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn Saks

I chose to write my research paper over Schizophrenia. It is a psychological disorder that I have always found fascinating. It is a serious disorder that consumes a person's life and is nearly impossible to control. In this paper, I will talk about the definition of Schizophrenia, the diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia in children, suicide, sexually related characteristics of the disease, sleep disorders caused by the disease, differences in the disease on different ethnicities, and insensitivity to pain.

After this episode a professor convinced her to go to the hospital and reluctantly she complied. This hospital did not take kindly to her psychosis and restrained her numerous times with straps. She had never been treated this way before and was confused and frightened. She later said for a hospital for the mentally ill it had been a brutal experience (157). She then was moved to a different hospital, memorial Unit 10 (MU10) where she was first diagnosed with “Schizophrenia with acute exacerbation” (167). Though she had finally gotten a diagnosis for her broken brain it seemed more like a death sentence than a diagnosis. She continued on with life in depression, psychosis, and denial.

Schizophrenia is a disorder of the brain affecting how one acts, thinks and sees the world around them. Persons with schizophrenia have an altered perception of reality and may see or here things

Jim Stevens left this poem up to interpretation. The title “Schizophrenia” sticks out because it is a mental disorder that affects how a person feels thinks and acts; thus, it leads the reader to believe this poem has a dark undertone. Each line gives a story of how a family deals with the issues of two people in a relationship. For instance, in the last line of the poem, "It was the House that suffered the most" (Stevens line 1), Stevens indicates the relationship was not a happy one and the house suffered for it. He sets up the image with this opening line and repeats it in the close of the poem. Throughout the poem the house transforms in to a person.

In the biography of Elyn Saks’ The Center Cannot Hold, she describes a lot of her symptoms that lead to her final diagnosis of schizophrenia. These symptoms include, disorganized speech, delusions, hallucinations, grossly disorganized, catatonic behavior and a few of negative symptoms.

Insanity, then, is inordinate or irregular, or impaired action of the mind, of the instincts, sentiments, intellectual, or perceptive powers, depending upon and produced by an organic change in the brain.

(Salinger 173). Holden has molded his life around this fantasy and fails to realize that

The symptoms of schizophrenia vary, however, they have been categorized as positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. Positive symptoms may include hallucinations, delusions, and / or thought disorder. Hallucinations normally give a false perception of touch, smell, taste, and / or visit, those with this particular mental disorder often experience auditory hallucinations. Delusions are also a sign of schizophrenia. Open quotations delusions are beliefs that are not part of the person's culture and do not change. Quotation parentheses u.s. Department, print the seas, 2010. These may cause a person that has this disorder, to think or feel as if they are victims in imagine conspiracy. It is also shown that they believe they are being controlled

In this week’s readings chapter twelve is about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder in which personal, social, and occupational functioning deteriorate as a result of strange perceptions, unusual emotions, and motor abnormalities. This disorder is very interesting, but also kind of scary to me. They literally end up in their own world, losing contact with reality. With that, they also experience hallucinations or delusions, which can cause them to do abnormal, possibly dangerous actions. These symptoms must last six months or more before the person can be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It will affect 1 out of 100 people in the world during ones lifetime. This disorder, unlike many others, is just as common among men and women,

For this literature review, I decided to read an autobiographical novel called “The Center Cannot Hold” at the suggestion of my individual supervisor at Sharp Mesa Vista, who said it was the best first-hand account of schizophrenia that she had ever read. The novel tells the story of Elyn Saks’ lifelong struggle with schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia as a Biological Disorder As well as the biological approaches there are physiological, psychological and environmental explanations. New theories of schizophrenia are constantly being developed each having their own advantages and disadvantages. How do we know however, which one is correct? The biological explanation suggests that schizophrenia is produced by an unfortunate combination of genes or is due to physical problems in the brain.

Schizophrenia is not yet fully understood, but it is known that it is characterized by extreme disturbances in many vital areas, including behavior, emotions, speech, perception and thinking. The term schizophrenia means

Schizophrenia is an incredible example of mental muddle which is exemplified by crumbling of thought processes and emotional receptiveness. It can be straightforwardly acknowledged by auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre illusions, dislocated speech or thinking aptitude pursued by social or occupational dysfunction. The warning signs initiate untimely in the adulthood. The disease is recognized to affect about 1% of the human population with about 2 million patients from the United States unaided.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is diagnosed in 0.5%-1% of the population in their lifetime (van Os et al, 2010). Its literal translation is ‘split-brain’, though it does not refer to multiple personality disorder, but rather a split from reality characterized by its disturbed perceptions, disorganized thinking and inappropriate emotions (Myers, 2010). Much research has been carried out to gain a better understanding of the causes of this serious disorder. A popular theory is the diathesis-stress model. This theory of schizophrenia proposes that stress can elicit a pre-existing vulnerability to the disorder (Jones & Fernyhough, 2007). This model focuses on the interaction between genetic heritability of the disorder, and the environments interaction

To begin with the primary symptom that is mostly seen in every chapter and during her visits to the psychiatrist are delusions. We begin to see these symptoms during her prologue she says, “I hide in the stacks until well after midnights, sitting on the floor muttering to myself. It grows quiet. The lights are being turned off. Frightened of being locked in, I finally scurry out, ducking through the shadowy library so as not to be seen by any security people” (p. 2). Another delusion Saks witnessed, “Someone watching me. Something watching me. It’s been waiting for this moment for so many years, taunting me, sending me previews of what will happen” (p. 4). Throughout chapters, she would often repeat these delusions, especially this delusion which was mentioned in chapter two and chapter fifteen, “Even though I heard her, even though I registered the genuine fear in her voice, I continued to run as though powered by some kind of engine. “No one can get me!” I shouted. “I’m flying! I’ve escaped” (p. 38)! Furthermore, into the autobiography she visits Mrs. Jones who gave her a psychoanalysis, is where Saks experiences this delusion, “I’m closing the curtains from now on because people across the street are looking at me. They can hear what I’m saying. They are angry. They want to hurt me” (p. 92). Another delusion Saks experienced is the most common among diagnosing schizophrenia because the people experiencing this psychosis often blame an object,