Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Schizophrenia
- Diagnostic Criteria
- Positive
Symptoms -
reflect an excess
or distortion of
normal
functions
- Delusions
- Bizarre
beliefs that
seem real,
but aren't.
- Can be
paranoid (i.e.
fearful of
persecution)
in nature
- May also
involve
inflated
beliefs about
the person's
power and
importance
- Of reference involve
the belief that the
behaviour or
comments of others
(even on TV) are
meant for them alone
- Experiences of control
- Belief that they
are under the
control of, for
example, an alien
force that has
invaded their mind
and/or body.
- Hallucinations
- Bizarre, unreal
perceptions of the
environment that are
usually auditory
(hearing voices) but
may also be visual
(seeing lights, objects
or faces), olfactory or
tactile
- Disordered thinking
- The feeling that
thoughts have been
inserted/withdrawn
from the mind
- In some cases the
person may
believe their own
thoughts are
being broadcast
so that others can
hear them.
- Tangential,
incoherent or loosely
associated speech is
used as an indicator of
thought disorder.
- Negative Symptoms
- Reflect a
diminution or loss
of normal
functions, which
often persist
during periods of
low (or absent)
positive
symptoms.
- Affective flattening
- Reduction in the range and intensity of emotion expression,
including facial expression, voice tone, eye contact, and
body language.
- Alogia
- Poverty of
speech
(lessening of
speech fluency
and
productivity)
- Reflect slowing or blocked thoughts
- Avolition
- Reduction of/inability to
initiate and persist in
goal-directed behaviour.
Often mistaken for
apparent disinterest.
- Under
DSM-IV-TR,
diagnosis
requires at least a
1 month duration
of 2 or more
positive
symptoms.
- The Nature of Schizophrenia
- Is not 'split
personality' nor
'multiple
personality'
- Sufferers aren't
perpetually
incoherent nor do
they constantly
display psychotic
behaviour
- Is characterised by a
profound disruption of
cognition and emotion
- affects language, thought, perception, affect, and even
sense of self
- Violence
- association with violent behaviour
largely due to media representations
- e.g. in 2007 newspapers
carried the sad story of
psychology graduate
Ashleigh Ewing who was
brutally murdered by
Ronald Dixon, a
schizophrenic 'with a
history of violence'.
- Content analysis of US TV by Deifenbach (1997)
- found that mentally ill people were 10x as likely
to be represented as violent compared to the
general population of TV characters
- In any one year, approx. 8% of schizophrenic patients will commit a serious act of violence,
more than the population who don't have a mental disorder, but less than those with other
mental disorders (i.e. depression and personality disorders).