Positive and Negative symptoms of schizophrenia

What is schizophrenia?

Its a type of psychosis - a thought process disorder characterised by a disruption to perception, emotion and beliefs.
-Thoughts and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality

What are positive symptoms of schizophrenia?

Positive symptoms refer to additional behaviours ( an excess or distortion of normal behaviour)
-Delusions
-Hallucinations
-Disorganised speech

What are delusions as a + symptom of schizophrenia?

Delusions:
-Bizarre beliefs that seem real to the person with schizophrenia even though they are not real
-It can make a sufferer of schizophrenia behave in ways that makes sense to them but seems bizarre to others
-There are two types of delusions

What are the 2 types of delusions?

-Persecutory delusions
-Grandeur delusions

What are persecutory delusions?

These types of delusions can be paranoid in nature
-This may involve the belief that they are being followed or spied on by someone else
-They may also report feeling that ppl are out 'to get them.'

What are grandeur delusions?

They are delusions that involve inflated beliefs about the persons power and importance
-E.g. The individual may believe they are famous or have special powers/abilities

What are hallucination as a + symptom of schizophrenia?

Hallucinations are bizarre, unreal perceptions of the environment, its normally auditory but there are other types:
-Auditory = Hearing voices that other ppl cant hear
-Visual = Seeing lights, objects or faces that other ppl cannot see
-Olfactory = Smelling things that other ppl cannot smell
-Tactile = E.g. the feeling that bugs are crawling on your skin

What is disorganised speech as a + symptom of schizophrenia?

Disorganised thinking cannot be directly observed but it will show up in their disorganised speech, there are several types:
-Neologisms = made up words
-Word salad = A mixture of seemingly random words and phrases
-Clang = involves stringing rhyming words together

What are negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

Negative symptoms refer to deficits (reduction or loss of normal behaviours)
-Poverty of Speech
-Avolition

What is Poverty of speech as a - symptom of schizophrenia?

Poverty of speech (Alogia) = Is characterised by a reduction in the amount and quality of speech
-They produce fewer words in a given time on a task of verbal fluency e.g. name as many foods as you can in 1 minute
-This is not due to less verbal ability than non - schizophrenics but more a difficulty spontaneously producing them

What is Avolition as a - symptom of schizophrenia?

Avolition = A reduction of interests and desires as well as an inability to initiate and persist in goal-directed behaviour
-E.g. sitting in the house for hours every day doing nothing. Avolition is distinct from poor social functioning which can be the result of other circumstances (e.g. having no friends or family available to have contact with).