Schizophrenia AO1

Classification of mental disorder

The process of organising symptoms into categories based on which symptoms frequently cluster together

Schizophrenia

A type of psychosis, a  severe mental disorder that is characterised by a profound disruption of cognition and emotion so that contact with external reality and insight are impaired.

Positive symptoms of schizophrenia

Atypical symptoms experienced in addition to normal experiences. Includes hallucination and delusions. (added to a person)

Hallucinations

• disturbances of perception in any of the senses. They are false perceptions that either have no basis in reality or are distorted perception of things that are

• The most common are auditory hallucinations (hearing voices). Many schizophrenics report hearing voices or seeing people, telling hem them to do something (e.g. harm themselves or others) or commenting on their behaviour

Delusions

firmly held irrational beliefs that have no basis on reality. Includes:

• delusions of persecution - the belief that others want to harm, threaten or manipulate you e.g. the government, aliens

• delusions of grandeur - the belief that they are an important individual, even god-like and have extraordinary powers e.g. the belief that they are jesus christ

• delusions of control - the belief that their body id under external control e.g. being controlled by aliens or the government

• delusions of reference - the belief that events in the environment appear to be directly related to them e.g. special personal messages are being communicated through TV

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Atypical experiences that represent the loss of a usual experience. Includes speech poverty and avolition. (symptoms that are taken away from you)

Speech poverty

• limited speech output with limited, often repetitive content. It involves reduced frequency and quality of speech. 

• this is sometimes accompanied by a delay in the sufferer’s verbal responses during conversation

• it’s not that they don”t know the words, but that they have a difficulty in spontaneously producing them

Avolition

• a lack of purposeful, willed behaviour. it’s the reduction, difficulty or inability to start and continue with goal-directed behaviour i.e. the actions performed to achieve a result

• people with schizophrenia often have a sharply reduced motivation to carry out a range of activity and results in lowered activity levels

• e.g. no longer being interested in going out and meeting friends, poor hygiene and grooming, lack of persistence in work and education, sitting in the house every day doing nothing

co-morbidity

• the occurrence of 2 disorders or conditions together. E.g. a person who has both schizophrenia and a personality disorder

• when 2 conditions are frequently diagnosed together it calls into question the lifyf if classifying the 2 disorders separately

Symptom overlay

• occurs when 2 or more conditions share symptoms

• where the condition share many symptoms thi calls into questions the validity of classifying the 2 disorders separately