Schizophrenia: A Tutorial Study Guide

Nicoladie Tam

• Publisher: Nicoladie Tam, Ph.D.
• eBook ISBN: 9781301972692
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Psychiatry & Mental Health

“Schizophrenia” is a part of the college-level Neuropsychopharmacology course series textbooks. It is a tutorial written in questions and answers format to describe the characteristics, symptoms and treatment of schizophrenia, including the pathology and etiology of the mental disorder.

It is a study guide with in-depth explanations. Each section is a modular unit that is self-contained for easy reading. The principles and concepts are introduced systematically so students can learn and retain the materials intuitively.

1.1.Psychosis Overview

What is psychosis?

It is any impairment that interferes with the capacity to function normally in a daily life.

Historically psychosis is a term that is used with many different definitions, without any universal acceptance of a single definition. The definitions of psychosis range from schizophrenia to depression.

What are the characteristics of psychosis?

The characteristics of psychosis are:

• Distortion of reality and disturbances in: perception (hallucinations)
• inferential thinking (delusions)
• language (disorganized speech)
• social interaction (withdrawn)
• motor behavior (stereotyped movements)
• motivation (avolition – inability to initiate goal-directed activities)
• intellectual functioning (alogia – impoverished mental creativity)
• emotional expression (flattened/blunt affect)
• pleasure experience (anhedonia – inability to experience pleasure)
• cognitive functions (impairments in attention, memory and executive functions).

Distortion of reality or exaggeration of reality is characteristic of psychosis, both in schizophrenia and depression. Schizophrenia is marked by the sense of altered reality, while depression is marked by the loss sense of reality and mania by the exaggerated sense of reality.

What are the two general classes disorder in psychosis?

They are:

• Thought disorder (schizophrenia)
• Affective disorder (depression).

Thought disorder is the disturbance in the thought process, and affective disorder is the disturbance in the affect (mood) of an individual.

What are the three major classes of affective disorder?

The three major classes of affective disorder are:

• Major depression (unipolar disorder)
• Mania
• Manic-depressive (bipolar disorder)

Major depression is characterized by the incapacitate sense of helpless and hopeless. It is also called unipolar disorder because it only has the depression component.

Mania is characterized by the flight of ideas, speech and activities of invincible, indiscretions and reckless behaviors without worrying about dire consequences.

Manic-depressive is also called bipolar disorder because of the mood swing between mania and depression. A person usually oscillates between the manic phase and the depressive phase of the disorder periodically.

 

 

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1.2.Characteristics of Schizophrenia

What are the characteristics of schizophrenia?

It is a thought disorder characterized by:

• disturbed form of thought
• disturbed content of thought.

Delusion is a common example that the thought process is bizarre which is not based on facts or reality.

What are the characteristics of persecutory delusion in schizophrenics?

Persecutory delusion is the belief that others are spying on them or planning to harm them. They are paranoid. They believe that their thoughts are imposed on them externally which they don’t have control of.

This pattern of thoughts often leads to confusion and illogical communications. The speech may be vague, incoherent, drift from subject to subject or repetitive.

What are the characteristics of the disturbances in perception in schizophrenics?

The characteristics are:

• Auditory hallucination
• Tactile hallucination
• Visual hallucination

Most hallucinations in schizophrenics are auditory in nature. They often hear a little demon in the head saying insulting and commanding things. Tactile hallucination can occur with tingling or burning sensations. Visual hallucination is seen as images of figures superpositioned on real background.

What are the characteristics of disturbances of emotions in schizophrenics?

The emotions are often:

• inappropriate (such as laugh while being tortured)
• no emotions
• no expressions of emotions (such as speak in monotone)...

Table of contents

• 1.1.Psychosis Overview
• 1.2.Characteristics of Schizophrenia
• 1.3.Etiology of Schizophrenia
• 1.4.Treatments of Schizophrenia
• 1.5.Etiological Models of Schizophrenia
• 1.6.Schizophrenia: Review