Abnormal Psychology – PSY404 VU
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LESSON 38
SCHIZOPHRENIA I
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder. The most common symptoms of schizophrenia include changes
in the way a person thinks, feels, and relates to other people and environment. Psychosis is a state in
which individuals lose contact with reality. It frequently appears in the form of schizophrenia, a
disorder in which previously adaptive levels of social, personal, and occupational functioning deteriorate
into distorted perceptions, disturbed thought processes, deviant emotional states, and motor
abnormalities. Approximately 1 percent of the world's population suffers from this disorder. Many
clinicians believe that schizophrenia is a group of distinct disorders that share some common feature
1- Loss of contact with reality.
2- Deterioration at social, personal, and occupational level of functioning.
3-Distorted perceptions, disturbed thought processes, deviant emotional states, and motor
abnormalities.
4- Delusions defined as false beliefs based on incorrect inferences about reality.
5- Hallucinations are sensory experiences that are not caused by actual external stimuli.
Examples
i) Mr. A was first hospitalized for hearing voices ten years ago when he was in senior school. His
medications have now seemed to prevent his bizarre beliefs and odd behavior but he has never been
able to stay at school or work.
ii) Mr. B had his first psychotic episode during college, he manifested paranoid delusions that his mind
was controlled by forces that broadcast to him through radio waves and that he was sure that there was
a plot to kill him.
iii) A homeless woman collects empty bottles, cans and cartons from trash and last week she set up a
camp under a tree and spent days there. Regardless of the weather she wears in layers all the clothing
she possesses.
iv) A student reported to the department chairperson that one of her professors is plotting against her,
all the students are after her and the university doctor has plans to kill her.
These are all examples of people suffering from Schizophrenia.
• Is Schizophrenia a disease like diabetes?
• Or some overwhelming stress leads to Schizophrenia?
• Do Schizophrenic people perceive and experience reality differently?
• Can Schizophrenia be cured?
• Why study Schizophrenia?
The answer to all these questions is complex and difficult.
• The most common symptoms of schizophrenia include changes in the way a person thinks, feels,
and relates to other people and the outside environment.
• No single symptom or specific set of symptoms is characteristic of all schizophrenic patients.
• Schizophrenia is officially defined by various combinations of psychotic symptoms in the absence
of other forms of disturbance, such as mood disorders (especially manic episodes), substance
dependence, delirium, or dementia.
Is Schizophrenia a disease like diabetes?
• Schizophrenia is a devastating disorder for both the patients and their families.
• It can disrupt many aspects of the person’s life, well beyond the experience of psychotic symptoms.
Why study Schizophrenia?
• Schizophrenia also has an enormous impact on society.
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