Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a group of disorders characterized by loss of contact with reality, marked disturbances of thought and perception, and bizarre behavior. At some phase delusions or hallucinations almost always occur.

Types
There are two types of schizophrenia Type I (Reactive or Acute Schizophrenia) and Type II (Process Schizophrenia):

Reactive or Acute Schizophrenia
Reactive schizophrenia is usually sudden and seems to be a reaction to some life crisis. Reactive schizophrenia is a more treatable form of the illness than process or chronic schizophrenia.

Process Schizophrenia
This type is characterized by lengthy periods of its development with a gradual deterioration and exclusively negative symptoms. It doesn't seem to be related to any major life change or negative event. Usually this type of schizophrenia is associated with "loners" who are rejected by society, tend not to develop social skills and don't excel out of high school.

Symptoms
The symptoms are things like bizarre behavior, hallucinations, or delusions, absence of any adjustive behavior in the important areas of life, a chronic maladaptiveness, flatness of affect, and absence of developed interpersonal relationships (social skills).

Content of thought
The principal disturbance in the schizophrenic's thought processes is multiple delusions. This is divided into two sub-categories, persecutory delusions (in which the schizophrenic believes that he/she is being talked about, spied upon, or their death being planned) and delusions of reference (which is when the schizophrenic gives personal importance to completely unrelated incidents, objects, or people.) Other common delusions include thought broadcasting (they believe their thoughts are visible to the outside world) and thought insertion, which is what most people perceive schizophrenia as consisting of (their thoughts are not their own and are in truth being inserted into their minds by some outside force). Other delusions, such as believing one to be Jesus, may appear in extreme cases.

Form of thought
Either schizophrenic express their thoughts in a loose manner, where ideas shift from one subject to another with seemingly no purpose, or "poverty of content," where communication is so vague, abstract, or repetitive, that it is meaningless to the listener. Made up words or illogically stringed together phrases may appear in writing or speech as well.

Perception
As we well know, the perception of the world is distorted in the experience of a schizophrenic. This may occur with any of the senses, but most often appear as auditory, with voices in the patients head or commands from high authorities which are obeyed at high risk to others or the patient themselves. Visual hallucinations happen less often.

Affect
This symptom is easiest described as an excessive lack of correlations between what an individual is saying and what emotion they are expressing.

Sense of self
Schizophrenics generally are not aware of their individuality to an extent that they maintain a perplexity about who they are.

Relationship to the external world
Although obvious, most schizophrenics are so preoccupied with the effects of their illness that they tend to be unavailable to others, which is referred to as autism. They don't notice the world that is happening before them.

Classes of Schizophrenia
Paranoid Schizophrenia - Patient displays the psychotic symptoms.

Undifferentiated Schizophrenia - Used when the patient's symptoms clearly point to schizophrenia but are so clouded that classification into the different types of schizophrenia is very difficult.

Residual Schizophrenia - Advised when an individual has been through at least one episode of schizophrenia (6 months) but then "recover."

Schizophreniform Disorder - Best understood as a schizophrenic disorder that has lasted for more than two weeks but less than six months. A less serious diagnosis, as it has a likelihood for the patient to return as normal member of society.