An Introduction to Schizophrenia Spectrum & Other Psychotic Disorders
Rashmi Nemade, Ph.D. & Mark Dombeck, Ph.D., edited by Kathryn Patricelli, MAimage by Gabriel Legaré (lic)
Nature of Schizophrenia
A Brain Disease
Schizophrenia is a brain disease that causes problems with normal brain functioning. People with this condition show odd and often highly irrational or disorganized behavior. The brain is where thinking, feeling and understanding of the world takes place). A brain disease, like schizophrenia, changes that thinking, feeling, and understanding. Symptoms include difficulty:
- thinking clearly
- interacting with others
- completing tasks
- expressing emotions
Even simple tasks like personal hygiene (bathing, eating, dressing, etc.) can become too difficult and are stopped. The disease can impact every aspect of the person's work, family, and social life. Family members frequently become distressed and overwhelmed by the challenges of providing care. They also often have trouble coming to terms with the changing of their loved one into a person with a serious life-long illness.
Psychosis and the loss of reality
A key feature of schizophrenia is psychosis. This happens when a person loses the ability to tell the difference between real and 'imagined' experiences. They lose touch with reality. People with schizophrenia commonly experience:
- hallucinations - sensations that only they experience. This can include voices speaking to them that only they can hear.
- delusions - fixed, mistaken ideas that the person holds. These are often odd or incorrect ideas about themselves and the world around them.
Both hallucinations and delusions do not happen voluntarily. They happen unconsciously and are not planned by the person who experiences them Typically, when people attempt to correct the delusions, the person will become defensive and will resist the idea that they are incorrect. From their perspective, the ideas seem to be true and make sense to them.
The hallucinations and delusions are 'imagined' in the sense that they do not have a solid basis in reality. However, they cannot be avoided and appear as real as other perceptions to the people who experience them. People with schizophrenia take the hallucinations seriously because of problems in their brain. Hallucinations are a sort of 'virtual reality' that people become trapped within. The delusional thoughts that form around these hallucinations are a natural response to what they believe they are experiencing.
People with schizophrenia tend to think and act differently than other people. This happens because the hallucinations, delusions and other symptoms of the disease cause them to experience reality very differently than other people. This loss of reality can be terrifying and cause them to struggle a great deal to make sense of their experiences. It is also very difficult for the people around them who are trying to understand why their loved ones are acting in such odd ways.
Resources
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Articles
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What is Schizophrenia?
- An Introduction to Schizophrenia Spectrum & Other Psychotic Disorders
- What Schizophrenia Is Not
- Statistics and Course of Schizophrenia
- Outcomes and Recovery Factors of Schizophrenia
- Disability and Schizophrenia
- Symptoms of Schizophrenia
- Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia: The Psychotic Dimension
- Positive Symptoms Continued and Negative Symptoms
- Evidence That Schizophrenia is a Brain Disease
- Schizophrenia Stigma and Violence
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Schizophrenia Symptoms and Diagnosis
- Formal DSM Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders Diagnoses
- Symptoms of Schizoid Personality Disorder
- Symptoms of Schizotypal Personality Disoders
- Symptoms of Brief Psychotic Disorder
- Symptoms of Psychotic Disorder Due to a Medical Condition
- Symptoms of Substance/Medication-Induced Psychotic Disorder
- Symptoms of Delusional Disorder
- Symptoms of Schizophrenia
- Symptoms of Schizoaffective Disorder
- Symptoms of Schizophreniform Disorder
- Schizophrenia Diagnostic Considerations
- Catatonia Associated with Another Mental Disorder (Catatonia Specifier)
- Catatonia Due to Another Medical Condition
- Unspecified Catatonia and Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorder
- Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorder Diagnosis Issues
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Schizophrenia Treatment
- Treatment: Identification of Schizophrenic Patients
- Schizophrenia Medication Treatment Options
- Schizophrenia Treatment - Antipsychotic Medications
- Schizophrenia Treatment - Hospitalization
- Schizophrenia Treatment - Outpatient Options
- Schizophrenia Treatment - Housing and Self-Help Options
- Treatment - Family Support
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Schizophrenia References
- Schizophrenia References
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What is Schizophrenia?
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Questions and Answers
- Mentally ill Daughter
- Am I Crazy?
- I See and Hear Things, What's Wrong With Me?
- I Think I Have a Mental Illness
- How to Handle my Mothers State of Mind?
- Schizophrenia
- Schizophrenic Relapse !
- My Little Girl
- What To Do?
- Paranoid Schizophrenia Diagnosis
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23 more
- Pregnant with A Mental Illness
- Help
- Am I Schizophrenic?
- Extreme Psychopathy/sociopathy?
- voices
- Am i schizophrenic?
- What Are Some Coping Skills for Paranoia?
- hearing voices, uncertain and scared
- A very low threshold for stress tolerance
- Am I going to do this?
- Hearing Voices
- night fears
- Is this Schizophrenia?
- losing personality wholness
- Pregnant and Possibly Schizophrenic
- Medication problem
- My Schizophrenic sister refuses treatment
- My Nephew Sees Angels
- Two cases of likely paranoia ...
- i have always believed someone was watching me
- A Librarian in Illinois asks:
- Am I Schizophrenic?
- Is Paranoia A Destiny?
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Book & Media Reviews
- 10% Happier
- A Beautiful Mind
- A Beautiful Mind
- A Beautiful Mind
- A Colorful History of Popular Delusions
- Angelhead
- Beyond Madness
- Clues
- Cognitive Theories of Mental Illness
- Daddy's Girls
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38 more
- Dante's Cure
- Defeating the Voices
- Diagnosis: Schizophrenia
- Diagnosis: Schizophrenia
- How to Become a Schizophrenic
- I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help!
- I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
- Imagining Robert
- Julien Donkey-Boy
- Juvenile-Onset Schizophrenia
- Living Outside Mental Illness
- Living With Schizophrenia
- Living with Schizophrenia
- Mad in America
- No One Cares About Crazy People
- Phenomology & Lacan on Schizophrenia, After the Decade of the Brain
- Recovery from Schizophrenia
- Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland
- Schizophrenia
- Schizophrenia
- Schizophrenia Revealed
- Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion?
- Social Cognition and Schizophrenia
- Street Crazy
- Surviving Schizophrenia
- Surviving Schizophrenia
- The Art of Adolf Wolfli
- The Collected Schizophrenias
- The Early Stages of Schizophrenia
- The Eden Express
- The Epidemiology of Schizophrenia
- The Invisible Plague
- The Madness of Adam and Eve
- The Outsider
- The Quiet Room
- Toxic Psychiatry
- Transforming Madness
- Wrestling with the Angel
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Links
- [1] Articles
- [2] Associations
- [1] Government
- [12] Information
- [1] Research
- [12] Videos
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Videos
- Raquea's Story: Finding What Works
- Treating First Episode Psychosis
- What is Schizophrenia?
- Corey's Story: One Door Closes, Another Opens
- Treatment of Schizophrenia
- Tell Me About Schizophrenia
- NAMI's Ask the Doctor Calls--Successful Aging with Schizophrenia
- Implementing Early Treatment of Psychosis -- RAISE Connection
- Schizophrenia & Dissociative Disorders
- What is Schizophrenia?
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2 more
- Living With Schizophrenia
- Schizophrenia - A Quick Intro
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