Schizophrenia: Overview

Question 1

What is Schizophrenia?

Answer 1

• A mental illness characterised by an extreme disruption of cognition and emotion, which affects language, thought, perception and sense of self.
• Its defining feature is psychosis.

Question 2

What is psychosis?

Answer 2

• A collection of symptoms that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality.

Question 3

What are positive symptoms of Schizophrenia?

Answer 3

• Behaviours that demonstrate a distortion of normal functioning i.e., they would not normally be seen in a healthy individual.

Question 4

What are the 4 positive symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 4

1. Delusions
2. Hallucinations
3. Catatonic behaviour
4. Thought disorder.

Question 5

What are delusions?

Answer 5

A belief that is held with complete conviction, even though it is based on a mistaken, strange or unrealistic view.

Question 6

What are 4 types of delusions?

Answer 6

1. Thought broadcasting= the belief that an external force is broadcasting what the individual is thinking to others.
2. Thought insertion= an external force makes the individual think something that is not appropriate.
3. Delusions of grandeur= the belief that they are someone important (e.g. Jesus, the King).
4. Delusions of persecution= the belief that someone is out to get them.

Question 7

What are hallucinations?

Answer 7

• Occur when someone experiences something that isn’t actually there to account for it.
• Can be auditory, visual, tactile or olfactory.

Question 8

What is catatonic behaviour?

Answer 8

• Repetitive or purposeless movements.

Question 9

What is thought disorder?

Answer 9

• Trouble keeping track of thoughts, trouble concentrating, thoughts and speech become jumbled or confused.

Question 10

What are negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 10

• Those that appear to reflect a diminution or loss of normal functions.

Question 11

What are the 4 negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 11

1. Alogia (poverty of speech).
2. Avolition.
3. Anhedonia.
4. Flat affect.

Question 12

What is alogia?

Answer 12

• Poverty of speech.
• Characterised by lack of speech, often caused by disruption of thought processes, brief and empty replies to questions.

Question 13

What is avolition?

Answer 13

• A lack of motivation or reduced drive to complete goal-directed activities.

Question 14

What is anhedonia?

Answer 14

• An inability to experience pleasure from typically pleasurable activities, also lack of motivation and desire to engage in normal activities.

Question 15

What is the flat effect?

Answer 15

• An inability to display appropriate emotional responses, typically no verbal or non-verbal emotion is displayed at all.