Schizophrenia symptoms.
Schizophrenia is not:
- split personality
- multiple personality
- perpetually incoherent behaviour
- psychosis (detachment from reality)
Schizophrenia is:
- a severe mental disorder
- characterised by profound disruption to cognition and emotion.
Schizophrenia does:
- affect a person’s language.
- affect a person’s thoughts.
- affect perception.
- affect sense of self-identity.
- creates delusions and hallucinations.
- affects 1/100 people.
Screening and diagnosing Schizophrenia.
- Screening is to test whether an individual may be more prone to Schizophrenia in the future
they can be given a screening test.
- It is important to remember that screening does not mean diagnosing.
Diagnosis: clinical characteristics of Schizophrenia:
- Schizophrenic symptoms are broken down into positive and negative symptoms.
Positive- symptoms that reflect on excess or distortion of normal functions (cognitive, emotive)
- Delusions: bizarre beliefs that seem real, but they are not. Delusions can be paranoid in
nature; they can involve inflated beliefs about a person’s power and importance.
- Experiences of control: belief that they are under control of an alien force that invaded their
mind/body.
- Hallucinations: bizarre/unreal perceptions of the environment which are auditory and/or
visual but can also be alfactory (smells) and/or tactile (feelings)
- Disordered thinking: feelings that thoughts have been inserted in to or withdrawn from the
mind. Feelings that thoughts are being broadcasted to others. Incoherent speech may also be
linked to disordered thinking.
Negative- symptoms that reflect a loss or diminution of normal functions (cognitive, emotive)
- Affective flattering: reduction and intensity of emotional expression, facial expression, voice
tone, eye-contact, and body language.
- Alogia: poverty of speech, lessening of speech fluency. Reflecting low or blocked thoughts.
- Avolition: reduction of/inability to and persist in ‘goal-directed’ behaviour e.g., some sufferers
sit around all day, stay awake for hours. This is often misconstructed as ‘disinterest’.
AO3- Issues of validity in the diagnosis of Schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is not:
- split personality
- multiple personality
- perpetually incoherent behaviour
- psychosis (detachment from reality)
Schizophrenia is:
- a severe mental disorder
- characterised by profound disruption to cognition and emotion.
Schizophrenia does:
- affect a person’s language.
- affect a person’s thoughts.
- affect perception.
- affect sense of self-identity.
- creates delusions and hallucinations.
- affects 1/100 people.
Screening and diagnosing Schizophrenia.
- Screening is to test whether an individual may be more prone to Schizophrenia in the future
they can be given a screening test.
- It is important to remember that screening does not mean diagnosing.
Diagnosis: clinical characteristics of Schizophrenia:
- Schizophrenic symptoms are broken down into positive and negative symptoms.
Positive- symptoms that reflect on excess or distortion of normal functions (cognitive, emotive)
- Delusions: bizarre beliefs that seem real, but they are not. Delusions can be paranoid in
nature; they can involve inflated beliefs about a person’s power and importance.
- Experiences of control: belief that they are under control of an alien force that invaded their
mind/body.
- Hallucinations: bizarre/unreal perceptions of the environment which are auditory and/or
visual but can also be alfactory (smells) and/or tactile (feelings)
- Disordered thinking: feelings that thoughts have been inserted in to or withdrawn from the
mind. Feelings that thoughts are being broadcasted to others. Incoherent speech may also be
linked to disordered thinking.
Negative- symptoms that reflect a loss or diminution of normal functions (cognitive, emotive)
- Affective flattering: reduction and intensity of emotional expression, facial expression, voice
tone, eye-contact, and body language.
- Alogia: poverty of speech, lessening of speech fluency. Reflecting low or blocked thoughts.
- Avolition: reduction of/inability to and persist in ‘goal-directed’ behaviour e.g., some sufferers
sit around all day, stay awake for hours. This is often misconstructed as ‘disinterest’.
AO3- Issues of validity in the diagnosis of Schizophrenia.
