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Schizophrenia
ICD-10 F20
ICD-9 295
OMIM {{{OMIM}}}
DiseasesDB {{{DiseasesDB}}}
MedlinePlus {{{MedlinePlus}}}
eMedicine {{{eMedicineSubj}}}/{{{eMedicineTopic}}}
MeSH {{{MeshNumber}}}

Schizophrenia (from the Greek word σχιζοφρένεια, or shjzofre'neja, meaning "split mind") is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder or a psychotic disorder, characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality and by significant social or occupational dysfunction. A person experiencing schizophrenia is typically characterized as demonstrating disorganized thinking, and as experiencing delusions or hallucinations, in particular auditory hallucinations.[1]

Although the disorder is primarily thought to affect cognition, it can also contribute to chronic problems with behavior, interpersonal relationships, and emotion. Due to the many possible combinations of symptoms, a debate is ongoing about whether the diagnosis necessarily or adequately describes a disorder, or alternatively whether it might represent a number of disorders. For this reason, Eugen Bleuler deliberately called the disease "the schizophrenias" plural, when he coined the present name.

Diagnosis is based on the self-reported experiences of the patient, in combination with secondary signs observed by a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, Social Worker, or other mental health professional. No laboratory test for schizophrenia exists. Studies suggest that genetics, early environment, neurobiology and psychological and social processes are important contributory factors. Current research into the development of the disorder often focuses on the role of neurobiology, although a reliable and identifiable organic cause has not been found. In the absence of a confirmed specific pathology underlying the diagnosis, some question the legitimacy of schizophrenia's status as a disease. Furthermore, some propose that the perceptions and feelings involved are meaningful and do not necessarily involve impairment.

The term schizophrenia translates roughly as "splitting of the mind", and comes from the Greek σχίζω (or schizo, "to split" or "to divide") and φρήν (or phrēn, "mind"). Despite its etymology, schizophrenia is not synonymous with dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder or "split personality"; in popular culture the two are often confused. People with schizophrenia are generally not more violent or dangerous than other members of the population.

Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia are highly likely to be diagnosed with other disorders. The lifetime prevalence of substance abuse is typically around 40%. Comorbidity is also high with clinical depression, anxiety disorders, and social problems, and a generally decreased life expectancy is also present. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia typically live ten to twelve years less than those without the disorder, owing to increased physical health problems and a high suicide rate. Unemployment and poverty are common. [2]

History of the disorder[]

A nonspecific concept of "madness" has been identified in antiquity, but schizophrenia was only classified as a distinct mental disorder by Kraepelin in 1887. He was the first to make a distinction between schizophrenia and manic depression and named it Dementia praecox .

The term schizophrenia is derived from the Greek words 'schizo' (split) and 'phren' (mind) and was coined by Eugene Bleuler to refer to the lack of interaction between thought processes and perception.He suggested the name schizophrenia, as it was obvious that Kraepelin's name was misleading. The word "praecox" implied precocious or early onset, hence premature dementia, as opposed to senile dementia from old age. Bleuler realized the illness was not a dementia, as it did not lead to mental deterioration. Rather, schizophrenia led to a sharpening of the senses and a greater awareness of memories and experiences.

Main article: Schizophrenia: History of the disorder

Problems with the concept and the validity of the term schizophrenia[]

However, there has been an increasing acknowledgement of the methodological weaknesses, poor prognostic power, symptomatic variability and general weaknesses inherent in the diagnostic validity of the term 'Schizophrenia', the psychological literature has increasingly tended to focus on specific or discrete symptoms or aspects associated with it (Bentall, 1990).

Main article: Schizophrenia - Definition problem

Evolutionary factors in schizophrenia[]

Main article: Schizophrenia - Evolutionary factors

Related articles[]

Main article: Schizophrenia - Diagnosis
Main article: Schizophrenia - Biological factors
Main article: Schizophrenia - Genetic factors
Main article: Schizophrenia - Environmental factors
Main article: Schizophrenia - Children
Main article: Schizophrenia - Developmental factors
Main article: Schizophrenia - Cognitive features
Main article: Schizophrenia - Theoretical approaches
Main article: Schizophrenia - Course of the condition
Main article: Schizophrenia - Epidemiology.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Risk factors.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Etiology.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Service planning and care pathways
Main article: Schizophrenia - Assessment.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Comorbidity.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Treatment.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Relapse prevention
Main article: Schizophrenia - Prognosis.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Suicide
Main article: Schizophrenia - Service user page.
Main article: Schizophrenia - Carer page.

Other terms[]

See also[]

Further information about schizophrenia and approaches to it, suggested by authors such as R.D. Laing, Emil Kraepelin, Eugene Bleuler, Karl Jaspers and Kurt Schneider, as well as books, can be found within the articles for those authors.

Notable people thought to be affected by schizophrenia

Journals[]

References[]

  1. American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition TR Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
  2. Brown, S. (1997) 'Excess Mortality of Schizophrenia. A Meta Analysis' in The British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 171, pp 502-508

Notes[]

Note 1: Evans, K., McGrath, J., & Milns, R. (2003) Searching for schizophrenia in ancient Greek and Roman literature: a systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandanavica, 107(5), 323–330.
Note 2: Kraepelin, E. (1907) Text book of psychiatry (7th ed) (trans. A.R. Diefendorf). London: Macmillan.
Note 3: Turner, T. (1999) 'Schizophrenia'. In G.E. Berrios and R. Porter (eds) A History of Clinical Psychiatry. London: Athlone Press. ISBN 0485242117
Note 4: Bertelsen, A. (2002) Schizophrenia and Related Disorders: Experience with Current Diagnostic Systems. Psychopathology, 35, 89–93.
Note 5: Verdoux, H., & van Os, J. (2002) Psychotic symptoms in non-clinical populations and the continuum of psychosis. Schizophrenia Research, 54(1–2), 59–65.
Note 6: Tsuang, M. T., Stone, W. S., & Faraone, S. V. (2000) Toward reformulating the diagnosis of schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(7), 1041–1050.
Note 7: McGorry PD, Mihalopoulos C, Henry L, Dakis J, Jackson HJ, Flaum M, Harrigan S, McKenzie D, Kulkarni J, Karoly R. (1995) Spurious precision: procedural validity of diagnostic assessment in psychotic disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 152 (2), 220–3.
Note 8: Read, J. (2004) Does 'schizophrenia' exist ? Reliability and validity. In J. Read, L.R. Mosher, R.P. Bentall (eds) Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia. ISBN 1583919066
Note 9: Torrey, E.F., Bowler, A.E., Taylor, E.H. & Gottesman, I.I (1994) Schizophrenia and manic depressive disorder. New York: Basic books. ISBN 0465072852
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Note 19: Van Os J. (2004) Does the urban environment cause psychosis? British Journal of Psychiatry, 184 (4), 287–288.
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Note 21: Davies G, Welham J, Chant D, Torrey EF, McGrath J. (2003) A systematic review and meta-analysis of Northern Hemisphere season of birth studies in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 29 (3), 587–93.
Note 22: Susser E, Neugebauer R, Hoek HW, Brown AS, Lin S, Labovitz D, Gorman JM (1996) Schizophrenia after prenatal famine. Further evidence. Archives of General Psychiatry, 53(1), 25–31.
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Note 25: Meyer-Lindenberg A, Miletich RS, Kohn PD, Esposito G, Carson RE, Quarantelli M, Weinberger DR, Berman KF (2002) Reduced prefrontal activity predicts exaggerated striatal dopaminergic function in schizophrenia. Nature Neuroscience, 5, 267-71.
Note 26: Healy, D. (2002) The Creation of Psychopharmacology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674006194
Note 27: Konradi C, Heckers S. (2003) Molecular aspects of glutamate dysregulation: implications for schizophrenia and its treatment. Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 97(2), 153-79.
Note 28: Coyle JT, Tsai G, Goff D. (2003) Converging evidence of NMDA receptor hypofunction in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1003, 318-27.
Note 29: Johnstone EC, Crow TJ, Frith CD, Husband J, Kreel L. (1976) Cerebral ventricular size and cognitive impairment in chronic schizophrenia. Lancet, 30;2 (7992), 924-6.
Note 30: Flashman LA, Green MF (2004) Review of cognition and brain structure in schizophrenia: profiles, longitudinal course, and effects of treatment. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 27 (1), 1-18, vii.
Note 31: Green, M.F. (2001) Schizophrenia Revealed: From Neurons to Social Interactions. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393703347
Note 32: Spencer KM, Nestor PG, Perlmutter R, Niznikiewicz MA, Klump MC, Frumin M, Shenton ME, McCarley (2004) Neural synchrony indexes disordered perception and cognition in schizophrenia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, 17288-93. (full text)
Note 33: Lewis DA, Hashimoto T, Volk DW (2005) Cortical inhibitory neurons and schizophrenia. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6, 312-324.
Note 34: Goldner EM, Hsu L, Waraich P, Somers JM (2002) Prevalence and incidence studies of schizophrenic disorders: a systematic review of the literature. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 47(9), 833–43.
Note 35: Ustun TB, Rehm J, Chatterji S, Saxena S, Trotter R, Room R, Bickenbach J, and the WHO/NIH Joint Project CAR Study Group (1999). Multiple-informant ranking of the disabling effects of different health conditions in 14 countries. Lancet, 354(9173), 111–115.
Note 36: Leucht S, Wahlbeck K, Hamann J, Kissling W. (2003) New generation antipsychotics versus low-potency conventional antipsychotics: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet, 361(9369), 1581-9.
Note 37: Potkin SG, Saha AR, Kujawa MJ, Carson WH, Ali M, Stock E, Stringfellow J, Ingenito G, Marder SR (2003) Aripiprazole, an Antipsychotic With a Novel Mechanism of Action, and Risperidone vs Placebo in Patients With Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 60(7), 681–90.
Note 38: Cormac I, Jones C, Campbell C. (2002) Cognitive behaviour therapy for schizophrenia. Cochrane Database of systematic reviews, (1), CD000524.
Note 39: Zimmermann, G., Favrod, J., Trieu, V. H., & Pomini, V. (2005) The effect of cognitive behavioral treatment on the positive symptoms of schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Research, 77, 1-9.
Note 40: Wykes T, Brammer M, Mellers J, Bray P, Reeder C, Williams C, Corner J. (2002) Effects on the brain of a psychological treatment: cognitive remediation therapy: functional magnetic resonance imaging in schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 181, 144-52.
Note 41: Kulhara P. (1994) Outcome of schizophrenia: some transcultural observations with particular reference to developing countries. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, 244(5), 227–35.
Note 42: Harding CM, Brooks GW, Ashikaga T, Strauss JS, Breier A. (1987) The Vermont longitudinal study of persons with severe mental illness, II: Long-term outcome of subjects who retrospectively met DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144(6), 727–35.
Note 43: Robinson DG, Woerner MG, McMeniman M, Mendelowitz A, Bilder RM (2004) Symptomatic and functional recovery from a first episode of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 473-479.
Note 44: Hopper K, Wanderling J (2000) Revisiting the developed versus developing country distinction in course and outcome in schizophrenia: results from ISoS, the WHO collaborative followup project. International Study of Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 26 (4), 835-46.
Note 45: Hannerz H, Borga P, Borritz M. (2001) Life expectancies for individuals with psychiatric diagnoses. Public Health, 115 (5), 328-37.
Note 46: Radomsky ED, Haas GL, Mann JJ, Sweeney JA (1999) Suicidal behavior in patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 156(10), 1590–5.
Note 47: Caldwell CB, Gottesman II. (1990) Schizophrenics kill themselves too: a review of risk factors for suicide. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 16(4), 571–89.
Note 48: Arseneault L, Cannon M, Witton J, Murray RM. (2004) Causal association between cannabis and psychosis: examination of the evidence. British Journal of Psychiatry, 184, 110-7. (full text)
Note 49: "Conditions in Occupational Therapy: effect on occupational performance." ed. Ruth A. Hansen and Ben Atchison (Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Williams, 2000), 54–74. ISBN 0-683-30417-8
Note 50: Zammit S, Allebeck P, Dalman C, Lundberg I, Hemmingsson T, Lewis (2003) Investigating the association between cigarette smoking and schizophrenia in a cohort study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160 (12), 2216–21.
Note 51: Walsh E, Gilvarry C, Samele C, Harvey K, Manley C, Tattan T, Tyrer P, Creed F, Murray R, Fahy T (2004) Predicting violence in schizophrenia: a prospective study. Schizophrenia Research, 67(2-3), 247-52.
Note 52: Simpson AI, McKenna B, Moskowitz A, Skipworth J, Barry-Walsh J. (2004) Homicide and mental illness in New Zealand, 1970-2000. British Journal of Psychiatry, 185, 394-8.
Note 53: Fazel S, Grann M. (2004) Psychiatric morbidity among homicide offenders: a Swedish population study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(11), 2129-31.
Note 54: Leong GB, Silva JA. (2003) Neuroleptic-induced akathisia and violence: a review. Journal of Forensic Science, 48
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Note 57: Polimeni J, Reiss JP. (2002) How shamanism and group selection may reveal the origins of schizophrenia. Medical Hypothesis, 58(3), 244–8.
Note 58: Torrey EF, Yolken RH. (2003) Toxoplasma gondii and schizophrenia. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 9 (11), 1375-80.
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Note 62: Lieberman JA, Stroup TS, McEvoy JP, Swartz MS, Rosenheck RA, Perkins DO, Keefe RS, Davis SM, Davis CE, Lebowitz BD, Severe J, Hsiao JK, Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) Investigators. (2005) Effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs in patients with chronic schizophrenia. The New England Journal of Medicine, 353 (12), 1209-23.

General reading[]

  • Bentall, R. (2003) Madness explained: Psychosis and Human Nature. London: Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 0713992492
  • Boyle, Mary,(1993), Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion, Routledge, ISBN 0415097002 (Amazon Review).
  • Green, M.F. (2001) Schizophrenia Revealed: From Neurons to Social Interactions. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0393703347
  • Jones, S. and Hayward, P. (2004) Coping with Schizophrenia: A Guide for Patients, Families and Caregivers. ISBN 1851683445
  • Keen, T. M. (1999) Schizophrenia: orthodoxy and heresies. A review of alternative possibilities. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 1999, 6, 415-424. PDF. An article reviewing the dominant (orthodox) and alternative (heretical) theories, hypotheses and beliefs about schizophrenia.
  • NICE (2003) Schizophrenia: full national clinical guidelines on core interventions in primary and secondary care, NICE, London.
  • Read, J., Mosher, L.R., Bentall, R. (2004) Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia. ISBN 1583919066. A critical approach to biological and genetic theories, and a review of social influences on schizophrenia.
  • Szasz, T. (1976) Schizophrenia: The Sacred Symbol of Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465072224
  • Torey, E.F., M.D. (2001) Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Consumers, and Providers (4th Edition). Quill (HarperCollins Publishers) ISBN 0060959193
  • Vonnegut, M. The Eden Express. ISBN 0553027557. A personal account of schizophrenia.

Further reading[]

  • Achimovich, L. (2005). Review of Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia: ANZJFT Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy Vol 26(2) Jun 2005, 108-110.
  • Bowen, M. (1960) A family concept of schizophrenia. In: D.D. Jackson (ed.) The Etiology of Schizophrenia, New York: Basic Books.
  • Clark, R.E. (1948) The relationship of schizophrenia to occupational income and occupational prestige, American Sociological Review 13: 325-30.
  • Clausen, J.A. and Kohn, M.L. (1959) Relation of schizophrenia to the social structure of a small city. In: B. Pasamanick (ed.) Epidemiology of Mental Disorder, Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  • Leff, J. (1992) Over the edge: stress and schizophrenia, New Scientist 4 January.
  • Read J, Mosher L, Bentall R, eds. (2002) Models of madness: psychological, social and biological approaches to schizophrenia.
  • Strauss, J. and Carpenter, W. (1981) Schizophrenia, New York: Plenum Press.

Instructions_for_archiving_academic_and_professional_materials

Schizophrenia - Academic support materials

  • Schizophrenia - Lecture slides
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  • Schizophrenia - Lecture handouts
  • Schizophrenia - Multimedia materials
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  • Schizophrenia - Anonymous fictional case studies for training

External links[]

Critical approaches to schizophrenia[]

Critical approaches to schizophrenia (from non-Scientologist sources)[]

News, information and further description[]

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Psychosis-this needs amending only example
Psychosis | Psychopathy  
Types of Psychotic Disorder
Schizophrenia | Paranoid schizophrenia | Schizotypal disorder  | Persistant delusional disorder | Induced delusional disorder | Schizoaffective disorders  | Disorganized schizophrenia | Schizotypy |
Assessing Psychosis
Psychological tests | Functional assessment | Early detection |Assessment issues |Schizophrenia - Evaluation protocols |
Treating Psychosis
Early intervention | CBT |Relapse prevention | Psychotherapy |Medication |Family therapy | Rehabilitation | Continuing care |
Psi This page uses content from the English-language version of The Psychology Wiki. The original article was at Schizophrenia. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of both The Psychology Wiki and Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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