intro to schizo:

• Diagnosis and classification:

  According to the medical approach in order to diagnose a specific disorder, we need to distinguish one disorder from another

  • Done by identifying clusters of symptoms that occur together and classifying this as one disorder
  • Diagnosis is then possible by identifying symptoms and deciding what disorder a person has.
• Diagnosis and classification:

  Two major systems for the classification of mental disorder are the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Disease ICD-10 and American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual edition 5 (DSM-5)

  • Differ slightly in their classification of schizo
  • DSM-5 system one of the so-called positive symptoms must be present for diagnosis whereas two or more negative symptoms are sufficient under ICD
• Diagnosis and classification:

  Previous editions of ICD and DSM recognised subtypes of schizophrenia paranoid schizophrenia involved mainly powerful hallucinations and delusions

  Both DSM-5 and ICD-10 have dropped subtypes because they tended to be inconsistent e.g. someone with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia would not necessarily show the same symptoms a few years later.
• Positive symptoms

  Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are additional experiences beyond those of ordinary existence

  1. Hallucinations

  • These are unusual sensory experiences.
  • Some hallucinations are related to events in the environment whereas others bear no relationship to what the senses are picking up from the environment
  • IE voices heard either talking to a person, often criticising them
  • Hallucinations can be experienced in relation to any sense. The person may, for example, see people that are not there
• Positive symptoms:

  2. Delusions

  • Also known as paranoia, delusions are irrational beliefs
  • These can take a range of forms
  • Common delusions involve being an important religious figure such as Jesus
  • Delusions also commonly involve being persecuted, perhaps by government
  • Another class of delusions concerns the body. A person may believe that they are under external control. Delusions can make a person behave in ways that make sense to them but seem bizarre to others
• Negative symptoms

  Involve the loss of usual abilities and experiences

  1. Speech poverty:

  • Schizo is characterised by changes in patterns of speech
  • Negative symptom because the emphasis is on reduction in the amount and quality of speech in schizo
  • Sometimes accompanied by a delay in the person's verbal responses during conversation
  • Nowadays more emphasis is placed on speech disorganisation in which speech becomes incoherent
  • Classified in DSM-5 as a positive symptom of schizophrenia whilst speech poverty remains a negative symptom
• Negative symptom:

  2. Avolition

  • Sometimes called 'apathy, this can be described as finding it difficult to begin or keep up with goal-directed activity, i.e. actions performed in order to achieve a result
  • People with schizo often have sharply reduced motivation to carry out a range of activities
  • Andreasen identified three signs of avolition:
  • poor hygiene and grooming, lack of persistence in work or education and lack of energy.