Schizophrenia

What is Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia was first discovered in 1911 by Eugen Bleuler. Schizophrenia is a combination of two Greek terms which translates to a “split mind”. The disorder often has a very strong genetic connection and most times manifest as a contact loss with reality

What do people with Schizophrenia exhibit?

• People with schizophrenia may hear voices around them, feel movements on their skin or see objects/people around them, most of which are not experienced by people without schizophrenia

• People with schizophrenia may have thoughts that people around them want to harm them or thoughts that they have supernatural powers to control the universe

• People affected with schizophrenia often have bizarre behaviours.

• Their speech is also disorganized and often lacking in meaning

• People with schizophrenia may have emotions that are inappropriate for situations. For instance, they could attend a party and start crying as everyone else is happily dancing

• They also do not feel pleasure from normally pleasurable activities

• They have nearly no emotional expression, i.e., you cannot tell whether they are happy or sad because there is a complete lack of emotional expression on their face

• People with schizophrenia also have a complete lack of motivation

Causes of Schizophrenia

The causes of schizophrenia are broadly biological, psychological, and sociocultural:

Biological factors – Having a family history of schizophrenia can serve as a biological risk factor for developing schizophrenia as one matures through life. This is because of the strong genetic connection implicated in schizophrenia

Psychological factors – Schizophrenia also has psychological causes. For instance, exposure to traumatic situations, abuse of substances, or head injuries could act as potential psychological causes of schizophrenia

Sociocultural factors – Social norms, religion, poverty, age, socioeconomic status, or gender could all act as potential sociocultural variables that explain the onset of schizophrenia

Types of Schizophrenia

If you think that you have schizophrenia, how do you know the type of schizophrenia that you may have?

Paranoid schizophrenia – People with this type of schizophrenia often express a strong suspicion to everyone around them

Disorganized schizophrenia – People with disorganized schizophrenia mostly exhibit bizarre and very odd behaviours.

Catatonia schizophrenia – People with this type of schizophrenia often experience body posture imbalances. Most times, they maintain a particular posture for days. This position is often called standing stupor

Simple schizophrenia – They exhibit the primary symptoms of schizophrenia, and after a while, they recuperate

Unclassified schizophrenia – This is when you cannot identify any type of schizophrenia based on the absence of all symptoms

Residual schizophrenia – This means when you have been treated of any schizophrenia and the symptoms have disappeared

Treatments for Schizophrenia

The treatment can be broadly grouped as follows:

Use of antipsychotic medication (such as haloperidol, etc.)

Psychotherapy (e.g., cognitive-behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, compassion-focused therapy, etc.)

Lifestyle modification (e.g., exercise, nutrition, reduction of stress, etc.)

A combination of the three groups of treatment is often the best form of treatment for people with schizophrenia disorder.