Psychosis and Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental health condition, often long term, affecting every one in a hundred people during their lifetime within the United Kingdom (NHS Evidence, 2010). It is categorised through various symptoms including disordered thinking, hallucinations, delusions and changes in behaviour.
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“One of the defining characteristics of Schizophrenia is disordered thinking” (Bernheim, Lewine, 1979. p.22) in which the patient may have difficulty concentrating on anything for a prolonged period of time or arranging thoughts towards a relevant goal. Their thoughts may travel off in different directions or down different trains of thought, “It is as if thinking gets waylaid, leading forever down divergent paths and either failing to get to the point quickly or going beyond it” (Bernheim, Lewine, 1979. p.27). People who suffer from schizophrenia often have trouble blocking out external interferences or disturbances when trying to concentrate or learn new information. They may be able to perform perfectly well on a single task given or singular question asked of them, however when presented with more than one task simultaneously they may struggle as ideas, tasks or questions become muddled, intertwined and confused. They may go blank in the middle of a sentence as if their thoughts were blocked and then continue on an unrelated topic: This may also lead to repetition as they keep blanking and having to repeat themselves. Unrelated thoughts may also appear to be connected within their mind purely due to the
timing of the thoughts springing into mind concurrently. The most commonly experienced schizophrenic symptom is social withdrawal; in more extreme cases the person may refuse to communicate at all on any level and not even leave his or her room or space of comfort. As they become more withdrawn, a schizophrenic person may move further into a dream like fantasy world which will progressively replace reality. This process tends to be less immediate and become gradually noticeable over time. Following their withdrawal they may also become disinterested with such things as personal hygiene or work and studies. The schizophrenic person may suffer from delusions in which they misinterpret or incorrectly read in to stimuli, often to paranoid ends. They may have incorrect ‘ideas of reference’ where they would watch a television program or hear a song on the radio, believing it to be concerning them, or maybe believe their work colleagues are all talking about them behind their back. These delusions are not based on proof or evidence and are such, irrational. They are also believed with absolute conviction with all new stimuli somehow being focused around the subject of the original delusion, adding evidence and proof in their minds: “You can’t tell your own intense thoughts, ideas, perceptions and imaginings from reality” (NHS Evidence, 2010). Hallucinations can be visual, smelt or heard with the later often culminating in any number of voices, again often paranoid or negative. They may feel things that aren’t there; such as
a burning sensation of fire or insects crawling over them for example. People suffering from these hallucinations may not be aware that they do not correlate with reality. When they can appreciate that what they see or hear is not real they can, for the most part, suppress these manifestations. Some however are unable to distinguish these fictitious sensory apparitions instead remaining controlled by the internal voices commanding them. Positive symptoms of schizophrenia, for example delusions and hallucinations, are labelled as such as they add characteristics to the patient that were not previously inherent to their personality; With negatively labelled symptoms conversely showing a reduction or diminishment of the patient’s personality, thoughts, or functions. Some examples of negative symptoms are a lack of interest, avoidance of people or emotional dullness. Common public misconception is that schizophrenia is actually a split personality condition where as in fact “It would be more accurate to say that people with schizophrenia have a mind that can experience episodes of dysfunction and disorder” (NHS Evidence, 2010). According to Freud; illnesses of this kind can be linked back to a previous traumatic even that is responsible for the current patient’s symptoms as “the memory of the trauma acts like a foreign body which long after its entry must continue to be regarded as an agent that is still at work” (Freud, 1895, p. 9). The events tend to be external stimuli to the patient and can sometimes consist of a “number of partial