Malyovana
Daria
Dragomanov
National Pedagogical University
The
Institute of Corrective Pedagogy and Psychology
Pet’ko Lyudmila,
Scientific supervisor,
Ph.D., Associate Professor,
Dragomanov
National Pedagogical University (Ukraine,
Kyiv)
SCHIZOPHRENIA
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that generally appears
in late adolescence or early adulthood – however, it can emerge at any time in
life. It is one of many brain diseases that may include delusions, loss of
personality (flat affect), confusion, agitation, social withdrawal, psychosis,
and bizarre behavior [5].
In the United States, about 1 person in100 will develop schizophrenia
during their lifetime and 15% of the schizophrenic patients end their lives in
suicide. However, schizophrenia is actually a highly treatable disorder of the
brain [7].
The word schizophrenia—which translates roughly as
"splitting of the mind" and comes from the Greek roots schizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn,
phren- (φρήν, φρεν-, "mind") –
was coined by Eugen Bleuler in 1908 and was intended to describe the separation
of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception. In the early 20th century, the psychiatrist Kurt Schneider listed the forms of psychotic symptoms that he
thought distinguished schizophrenia from other psychotic disorders. These are
called first-rank symptoms or Schneider's first-rank symptoms. They include
delusions of being controlled by an external force; the belief that thoughts
are being inserted into or withdrawn from one's conscious mind; the belief that
one's thoughts are being broadcast to other people; and hearing hallucinatory
voices that comment on one's thoughts or actions or that have a conversation
with other hallucinated voices [6].
As with many mental disorders, the causes of schizophrenia are poorly
understood. Friends and family commonly are shocked, afraid or angry when they
learn of the diagnosis. People often imagine a person with schizophrenia as
being more violent or out-of-control than a person who has another kind of
serious mental illness. But these kinds of prejudices and misperceptions can be
readily corrected [3].
Individuals with schizophrenia may hear voices that are not there. Some
may be convinced that others are reading their minds, controlling how they
think, or plotting against them. This can distress patients severely and
persistently, making them withdrawn and frantic.
Others may find it hard to make sense of what a person with
schizophrenia is talking about. In some cases, the individual may spend hours
completely still, without talking. On other occasions he or she may seem fine,
until they start explaining what they are truly thinking.
Young people with
schizophrenia have psychotic periods that may involve hallucinations,
withdrawal from others, and loss of contact with reality. Other symptoms
include delusional or disordered thoughts and an inability to experience
pleasure. Schizophrenia occurs in about five of every 1,000 children (National
Institutes of Health, 1997) [4].
The effects of schizophrenia reach
far beyond the patient – schizophrenia
does not only affect the person with the disorder. Families, friends and
society are affected too. A sizable proportion of people with schizophrenia
have to rely on others, because they are unable to hold a job or care for
themselves [5].
The scientists
points out such characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia:
1) Delusions, 2) Hallucinations, 3) Disorganized speech (e.g., frequent
derailment or incoherence), 5) Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, 5)
Negative symptoms, i.e., affective flattening, alogia, or avolition.
Generally the
schizophrenia subtypes are: 1) Paranoid type – characterized
by preoccupation with delusions or auditory hallucinations, mainly by presence
of delusions of persecution or grandeur. Patients with paranoid schizophrenia
are typically tense, suspicious, guarded, reserved, and sometimes hostile or
aggressive, but they can occasionally conduct themselves adequately in social
situations. Their intelligence in areas not invaded by their psychosis tends to
remain intact; 2) Disorganized type – characterized by a marked regression to
primitive, disinhibited, and unorganized behavior. Their thought disorder is
pronounced, and their contact with reality is poor. Their personal appearance
is dilapidated and then social behavior and their emotional responses are in
appropriated, and they often burst into laughter without any apparent reason. Incongruous
grinning and grimacing are common in these patients, whose behavior is best
described as silly or fatuous; 3) Catatonic type – characterized by
disturbance in motor function such as stupor, negativism, rigidity, excitement,
or posturing. Patients may show rapid alteration between extremes of excitement
and stupor. Associated features include stereotypes, mannerism, and waxy
flexibility. Mutism is common; 4) Undifferentiated type – patients
who are clearly schizophrenic cannot be easily fitted into one or another type
and are classified as having schizophrenia of the undifferentiated type; 5) Residual
type – characterized by continuing evidence of the schizophrenic
disturbance in the absence of a complete set of active symptoms or of
sufficient symptoms to meet the diagnosis of another type of schizophrenia [7;
3].
M.Bengston
describes warning signs that may indicate someone is heading toward an episode
of schizophrenia include: social isolation and withdrawal, irrational, bizarre or odd statements or
beliefs, increased paranoia or questioning others' motivations, becoming more
emotionless, hostility or suspiciousness, increasing reliance on drugs or
alcohol (in an attempt to self-medicate), lack of motivation, speaking in a
strange manner unlike themselves, inappropriate laughter, insomnia or
oversleeping, deterioration in their personal appearance and hygiene [3].
John Nash, an
American mathematician who worked at Princeton University, won the Nobel Prize
(1994) in Economics and lived with paranoid schizophrenia most of his life. He
eventually managed to live without medication. A film was made of his life "A
beautiful mind", which Nash says was "loosely accurate" [5;
1].
Bibliography
1. A beautiful
Mind (USA, 2001) [Web site]. – Access
mode: http://gidonlinekino.com/2011/03/igry-razuma/
2. A Case Study In Schizophrenia (Video) [Web site]. – Access mode:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/36942.php
3. Bengston M. All About
Schizophrenia [Web site]. – Access
mode: http://psychcentral.com/disorders/schizophrenia/
4. Child Behavior Disorders [Web site].
– Access mode: http://www.psychology.com/resources/child_behavior.php