The Psychological Disorder of Schizophrenia

The Psychological Disorder of Schizophrenia

Jasmyn Hill

Post University

Schizophrenia is a debilitating psychological disorder. This severe mental illness affects about one percent of the population and more than two million individuals in the United States(Edwards-Dryden, 2016) It is a psychotic disorder of disordered behavior, thoughts, and social problems. People diagnosed with this may be completely out of touch with reality at times. Examples of this are; hearing voices, seeing hallucinations, weird speech patterns, and disorganized behavior. The individual might also experience paranoia, such as thinking that others are plotting against them, when clearly that is not the case.

People that are diagnosed with schizophrenia may not all show the same symptoms, or might display them at different degrees, though they are labeled with the same illness. Even though there are different levels, you can easily distinguish schizophrenia from other disorders.

There are five different types of schizophrenia; Disorganized, Paranoid, Catatonic, Undifferentiated, and Residual. Disorganized Schizophrenia's symptoms include inappropriate laughter, disturbed speech, child like or strange behavior. Paranoid Schizophrenia is delusions of oneself, loss of judgement, and unpredictable behavior. Catatonic type of the disorder is odd changes in movement, loss of all motion (frozen like) for hours or days at a time, or could be hyper, always moving and often violent at times. Undifferentiated Schizophrenia is for patients that can not be characterized into a certain type of the disorder. This kind shows many of the major symptoms, while Residual Schizophrenia displays minor signs after a serious episode has already occurred(Feldman, 2015).

One might ask, where does schizophrenia come from? Although it is not one hundred percent certain what the major cause of it is, doctors and researchers agree that biological and environmental factors play a huge role. If the disorder runs in the family, there is bigger risk of getting it, but it is not directly passed from one generation to the next. It seems to be the result of a complex group of biological and environmental risk factors.

Biologically it is thought that people who have abnormalities in the brain have a higher risk of development. Some studies suggest that it occurs where there is to much activity in the part of the brain that uses dopamine as neurotransmitter. Other research suggests that another neurotransmitter, glutamate, might be a major contributor. Some of the biological structural differences that are in these brains could be a result of exposure to a virus or infection during or before fetal development.

Environmentally, the chances of schizophrenia can occur before birth. There is an increased risk when the mother is malnourished while pregnant, or even if the father is of old age at the time of conception. During childhood, if there is a traumatic event, or a dysfunctional life, such as the