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Symptoms And Treatment Of Schizophrenia

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The streets of many cities are homes for thousands of people with no homes, no money and seemingly no lives. When seen talking to themselves or yelling at a wall, ordinary people cross the street or simply look the other way. It never occurred to them that these “crazies” ate often very sick people with the incurable disease schizophrenia. What they don’t know also realize is that this disease could just as likely be a friend, cousin, sister, or even them. Schizophrenia was first recognized by a Belgian, Benoit A. Morel. He called it demence precoce and describes it as a condition in young people, similar to the deterioration of the old, of arrested development. Morel noted “the fact that it led to severe emotional and intellectual deterioration” (Collier’s 389). Because of the age of occurrence, the name was changed to precocious dementia, and changed again in 1911 to two Greek words: schizein(split) and phren (mind) by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (Collier’s 389). In 1896 and well into the 1900’s, psychologists predominantly believed in the theories of three men: German Dr. Emil Kraeplin, Dr. Sigmund Freud of Austria, and U.S. Dr. John B. Watson (Long 49). Kraeplin systematically studied the different conditions patients showed of the disease and classified them into four groups: paranoid, hebephrenic, catatonic, and simple (Collier’s 389). Freud brought about the theory that the illness developed because of certain experiences in ones emotional life, “particularly

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