Schizophrenia Case

n recent years there has been much research into the factors that cause schizophrenia and treatment for it. The purpose of this essay is to define and develop knowledge of what schizophrenia is, show how the psychological models identify the causes of schizophrenia and the therapy and treatment and their effectiveness. It will give an understanding and appreciation of how specifically the biological and cognitive approaches do this, looking at specific studies and research such as the Twin study carried out by Kallman (1952)

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder characterized by a dysfunctional thinking process and withdrawal from the outside world. The word schizophrenia comes from two Greek words schizo which means split and phrenia, which means mind. This does not mean that a person with the disorder has multiple personalities, but rather parts of the mind seem to be operating independent of each other. The disease was first recognised by Dr Emile Kraeplin in 1887. The clinical characteristics for chronic schizophrenia is there are harmful and subtle changes in an apparently normal person, who gradually loses drive and motivation then starts to drift away from friends. After months or even years of this decline in mental health, more obvious signs of disturbance such as delusional ideas or hallucinations appear. Acute schizophrenia shows obvious signs such as hallucinations can appear quite suddenly, usually after a stressful event. The individual shows very disturbed behaviour within a few days, this distinction was made by Crow (1985).

The typical symptoms of schizophrenia are thought control, such as thought withdrawal where the patient believes thought are being extracted from their mind, thought insertion where they believe thoughts are being inserted or broadcast where they believe private thoughts have become accessible to other people. Hallucinatory voices, these are voices that do not exist but the patient hearing them believes they are real. Delusions of control, influence and passivity are also symptoms of schizophrenia, the schizophrenic have distorted beliefs, or belief they have impossible powers and capabilities. Incoherent or irrelevant speech, it will seem like nonsense to a normal person. Made up words called neologisms may be used. Catatonic behaviour is unusual body movement or uncontrollable limb movement. A person with schizophrenia will present many of these symptoms but not all.

The DSM and the ICD are used to diagnose the mental illness both these classification systems have similar descriptions of the symptoms there are difference in them; the duration the symptoms have to be present vary the DSM requires symptoms to be present for six months whereas the ICD only requires them to be present for one month. The DSM emphasises the course of the disorder and accompanying functional impairment but the ICD focuses more on the first-rank symptoms which symptoms are rarely found in any other disorder than schizophrenia. Individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia can present with different problems. This suggests there is no single underlying causal factor. This suggests that there is a lack of validity in the diagnosis of schizophrenia. It is argued that each of the symptoms of schizophrenia should be seen as a disorder in its own right, with its own cause and treatment.(Hayes, N 1994)

The biological model believes that schizophrenia is like any other physical illness and therefore can be treated in a similar way. It believes that it is caused by genetics, biochemical imbalances or changes in the nervous system, therefore the classification of the illness involves observations of the symptoms, they are much more subjective and judgement is largely made on experience of the clinician. The biological approach focuses on the symptoms of schizophrenia rather than the causes of it.

Some biological theorist shows schizophrenia can