A physician has an unenviable position. He is closest to man approaching a god-like stature and when that god stumbles, the consequences can be disastrous. This is even more so in the field of psychiatry where the fact that mental illness exists is not disputed, but the diagnoses and treatment is often suspect. However, despite the demise of 'doctor knows best ', we still need to trust a psychiatrist since diagnosis is based on a patient 's expressed thoughts and overt behaviours rather than solely on biological phenomena. This requires not only that the patient trust the doctor, but even before that, the doctor appreciates and understands the context of those behaviours; behaviours that are influenced by the patient 's environment.
In 1898, a German psychiatrist, Emil Kraepelin, described the confusion with the side effects and named this disorder in the Latin expression, dementia praecox. Later in 1908, Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist, initially named the expression "Schizophrenia" Schizophrenia comes from the mix of the Greek words for split (skhizein) and brain (phren).
One of the illnesses that was very common was Schizophrenia. This is a” long-term mental disease that affects how your brain works. Schizophrenia may change how you think, feel, and behave. The patient may not be able to know what is real and what is not real. Also, thoughts may not be clear, or may jump from one topic to another.” Symptoms include confusion, delusions, hallucinations, and feeling mentally lost. When a doctor
Schizophrenia is one of the most recognizable mental illnesses that the world knows, this comes with benefits as it does with consequences. The benefit being that many people have heard of the term, but a minute group truly know about it. This has led to a society where it is commonplace to ostracize those with the illness, which subsequently leads to negative effects on those diagnosed. It is as if society still has not developed a sufficient system in which Schizophrenia fits in. People with heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, all receive sympathy and yet people will Schizophrenia seldom receive the same. This societal separation and fear has progressively led to the development of the current stigma surrounding the illness. The general
In Chase’s article he demonstrates how his younger brother, Jim had to be psychoanalyzed in order to examine the reasons for his behaviors and his mental disorder. In the results Jim was suffering from schizophrenia which began in his adolescence and he spent his adult life in California institutions. Chase deplores the psychoanalytic approach to Jim's illness, insisting that the mind is "nothing but an aspect of the brain's physiological activity."
Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder that is most commonly associated with delusion and hallucinations. It has been estimated that 0.4-0.7% of people develop schizophrenia, with the mental health condition being equally prevalent in both men and women (Saha et al., 2005). It is a particularly expensive illness due to its severity, reportedly costing the U.S. around $62.7 billion in 2002, with unemployment the most significant factor causing this staggering figure (Wu et al., 2005).
What are some thoughts that come to mind when a person brings up the word schizophrenia? According to Ford-Martin, “Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder or group of disorders marked by disturbances in thinking, emotional responsiveness, and behavior” (2139). The character, Alice, from the film, Alice in Wonderland is a perfect example of schizophrenia, and the director, Tim Burton, further emphasizes the disorder by his use of film techniques.
Schizophrenia is characterized as a heterogeneous condition that usually starts during adulthood. This kind of mental disorder is quite hard to differentiate between a fantasy or reality since it is associated with a variety of symptoms. The symptoms include disturbances in communication, language, perception, thought and volition. The symptoms are being divided into negative and positive which include hallucinations, delusions, behavior and disorganized speech. The latter symptoms include avolition, alogia, affective flattening and asociality (MHA, 2014).
Schizophrenia is an ominous word often associated with psychosis, delusions, as well as paranoia. Society supposedly understands how horrible symptoms like these make schizophrenia one of the worst mental diseases that one could live with, and the story of Elyn Saks is definitely no exception. In the memoir The Center Cannot Hold, Elyn R. Saks brings her readers through the harsh realities of living with schizophrenia, while also dealing with the stresses associated with high school, getting a college degree, while still maintaining relationships with family and friends. Saks had inadequate care as a child when her symptoms first began showing, and being transferred through countries following school, and being passed from doctor to doctor
Hear their thoughts (= "thought echo"), they are often clueless and very insecure. Many try to avoid the contact with others (= withdrawal), while others withdraw themselves so much that they remain completely motionless (= rigidity), or they could be trying to find an explanation for all the things that they experience (= Declaration mania), and then believe, that they are ruled by supernatural forces, aliens or were chosen by God to save the world (= delusions).
Some symptoms of Schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions, negative symptoms, thought disorders, movement disorders, positive symptoms and cognitive issues. These many issues can affect the patient in many ways, such as with hallucinations,
The time at which schizophrenia develops tends to be the early to mid twenties, which is consistent with the onset of West’s psychotic break at age twenty-three. In Treating Schizophrenia, Werner Mendel states that in a significant portion of cases close family members do not notice the gradual changes in the schizophrenic’s behavior. They perceive the changes in the person’s behavior to be sudden, although non-family members
In A Beautiful Mind, John Nash, a mathematician, suffers from schizophrenia. This is a harrowing disorder, as mentioned previously, that causes abnormal thought and emotion processes, strange or false views of reality, and, occasionally, abnormal motor functions. These people often struggle to function on a personal level, in social interactions, as well as in the work setting. This disorder often presents between the late teens and the mid-thirties (Comer, 2015, p. 466). John Nash presented with signs and symptoms of schizophrenia when he attended graduate school, putting him in the later years for diagnosis. NEW PARAGRAPH? In addition, schizophrenia is a spectrum disorder and has three phases: prodromal, active, and residual. The prodromal phase involves the beginning of mental deterioration with symptoms being less obvious. This phase often includes withdrawing from society and social
Schizophrenia is generally divided according to symptom types. The symptoms of schizophrenia have been divided into three specific complexes (i.e., positive symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive deficits; Buchanan, 2007), while others use a dichotomous model, such as type I and type II Schizophrenia (Crow, 1980) that roughly corresponds to positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia (Andreasen, 1982). Positive symptoms were characterized over the past 150 years by active excesses in normal functioning; while negative symptoms of schizophrenia are characterized by a loss of normal functioning (Berrios, 1985; Rector, Beck & Stolar, 2005). Hence, while there are different symptom types, all typologies and dimensional models acknowledge negative symptoms.
World Health Organization. Schizophrenia, schizotypal and delusional disorders. International Statistical Classification of Disease and Related Health Problems. Tenth Revision. Version: 2015.