Characteristics of Schizophrenia

• Characteristics of schizophrenia

  • Positive symptoms
  • Negative symptoms
• Positive symptoms

  Behaviours the person with schizophrenia exhibits in addition to normal 'typical' behaviours
• Negative symptoms

  Symptoms that inhibit the person's ability to demonstrate 'typical' behaviours
• Positive symptoms

  • Delusions
  • Hallucinations
  • Disordered thinking
• Negative symptoms

  • Alogia
  • Avolition
  • Anhedonia
  • Flatness of affect
  • Catatonic behaviour
• Hallucinations

  Perceptions that aren't real
• Types of hallucinations

  • Auditory
  • Visual
  • Sensory
• Auditory and visual hallucinations are the most common, with only 20% of people with schizophrenia experiencing sensory (tactile) hallucinations
• Auditory hallucinations

  Can be pleasant or unpleasant, ranging from discussing activities to talking directly to the person
• Sensory hallucinations

  The person feels something or someone touching their skin
• Visual hallucinations

  The person sees objects or people that aren't there
• Delusions

  Beliefs that aren't real
• Types of delusions

  • Persecution
  • Grandiosity
  • Reference
• Delusion of persecution

  The belief that someone wants to harm the person with schizophrenia
• Delusion of grandiosity

  The belief that the individual is special or 'unique' in some way
• Delusion of reference

  The belief that certain gestures, comments, environmental cues are directed for them personally
• Disordered thinking

  Jumping from one topic to another without explanation, and disorderly or incoherent speech
• Alogia

  Poverty of speech, lacking meaning or purposeful conversation with only short responses
• Avolition

  Indifference towards one's surroundings, e.g. personal life or work
• Anhedonia

  Lack of appropriate reactions towards pleasurable experiences or situations
• Flatness of affect

  Appearing to have no emotions or a limited emotional range, e.g. lack of laughter, smiling, or monotony in voice
• Catatonic behaviour

  Fast, repetitive movements or little to no movements for long periods of time, including echopraxia (mimicking movements of others)