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Created by Lindsey D. Rutledge, M.D.

Updated by Lowell Amiotte, M4

    Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder which affects 1-2% of the population worldwide. In the United States more than 2 million people a year are affected. It is a disease that affects one's thoughts, emotions, perceptions and interactions with others.

Thoughts
    Individuals with schizophrenia lose their ability to use logic.  They rapidly change trains of thought without realizing it, and may develop delusions, or unusual beliefs that they will not change in spite of evidence to the contrary (e.g. believing space aliens are following them).  They may leave words out of sentences or make up new words.   They may attribute spectacular meanings to everyday occurrences, such as believing that the bus driving by them means that the Queen of England will be visiting them that night. 

Emotions
    Schizophrenia can cause people to express emotions inappropriately, such as laughing when sad.  It can also cause decreased expression of emotions, termed flattened affect. 

Perceptions
  Schizophrenics have trouble both with their perception of themselves and with their perception of the outside world.  They may not recognize their thoughts and emotions as coming from themselves, but instead believe someone else is putting the thoughts and emotions into them.  They also may hallucinate, seeing or hearing things that are not there.

Interactions
    Schizophrenic patients often have no desire to do anything or else no ability to act on their desires, for example remaining home all the time and not going to buy groceries or see family members.  Instead, they focus entirely on their own internal experiences.

Positive versus Negative Symptoms
    Positive symptoms include hallucinations and delusions.
    Negative symptoms are those that create a lack of something, such as a lack of emotional expression, lack of thought content, lack of motivation and action.

There are several subtypes of schizophrenia and due to this diversity of the disease; there remains much debate over whether it is one disease or several similar diseases.  This is an important distinction, in that different treatments may be required for separate but similar diseases.

• Types of Schizophrenia
  • Disorganized schizophrenia – This type of presentation is characterized by disorganized or incoherent speech and the expression of inappropriate moods and emotions based on the social situation. Generally, there are no hallucinations.
  • Paranoid schizophrenia – Characterized by being very suspicious of others and often have grand schemes of persecution at the root of their behavior. Hallucinations and delusions are a prominent part of the paranoid behavior.
  • Residual schizophrenia – In this type the patient is not experiencing delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech and behavior. However they suffer from a lack of motivation and interest in day-to-day living.
  • Schizoaffective disorder – This is a combination of symptoms. The person exhibits the symptoms of schizophrenia combined with mood disorders such as major depression, bipolar mania, or mixed mania.
  • Catatonic schizophrenia – Is characterized by profound social withdrawal and isolation. There are also marked psychomotor disturbances.
  • Undifferentiated Schizophrenia – This is a subtype where individuals meeting diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia but not fitting into any of the other subtypes are placed.  Also, if they exhibit the features of more than one of the other subtypes without a clear predominance of a particular set of diagnostic characteristics are placed in this category.

Schizophrenia is typically a very painful disease for those it affects.  They are usually aware that what is happening to them is abnormal and that others treat them differently, although they may not believe this is from a disease and may be suspicious of those trying to help them.  Therefore, anxiety and depression often occur along with the symptoms directly attributable to schizophrenia

 Warnings and cautions:

   The following web page is provided for information purposes only. Please approach any treatment with caution and always inform your health care provide of any treatments you are trying.

Links to sites that may interest you:

·         Red Flags of Junk Science - How To Evaluate Health Claims

·         Sites questioning the value or principles of CAM