Lesson Notes

Lesson 14.4a  Symptoms of Schizophrenia: Five Areas of Disturbance

There is no easy way to categorize a person who suffers from schizophrenia. Unlike the other disorders discussed in this chapter where a person with an anxiety disorder has symptoms of anxiety, schizophrenia can have many different symptoms and classes. Psychologists look at five main areas of disturbance when classifying a person with schizophrenia. These include, perception, language, thought, emotion, and behaviour. The behaviours that may arise from these areas include delusions, hallucinations, word salad, waxy flexibility, or even flattened affect. The most important factor to remember is that not every person with schizophrenia experiences all of these symptoms. Understanding these five areas of disturbance will give you a greater appreciation of what characterizes schizophrenic behaviours.  

Lesson 14.4b  Types of schizophrenia: Recent Methods of Classification

In this lesson you will learn how the DSM IV-TR classifies the various symptoms associated with schizophrenia. Historically, there have been five categories of schizophrenia: paranoid, catatonic, disorganized, undifferentiated, and residual. Although these classifications can still be found in the DSM IV-TR, the newest version put out by the APA provides two broad categories to help diagnose patients: Positive symptoms, and Negative symptoms. As the names suggest, positive symptoms are those that are additions to the person’s behaviour (i.e. delusions), while negative symptoms illustrate an absence (i.e. lack of affect).

Lesson 14.4c  Explaining Schizophrenia: Nature and Nurture Theories

As you have been exposed to several times in this course, there are various theories that help explain the prevalence of people who suffer from schizophrenia. The first main theory is the biological theory. Through the use of twin studies and family studies, there is a clear correlation that schizophrenia has a genetic basis. One of the main findings points to the (high) levels of dopamine in the brain. MRI’s have also shown that there may be a link to brain abnormalities to the presence of schizophrenic symptoms. Psychosocial theories point to high levels of stress and poor family communication as contributing factors to the onset of schizophrenia. Either way, the findings only suggest a correlation, not cause and effect (recall from module one that correlations only demonstrate a relationship, nor causality). All in all, it is important to remember that schizophrenia is prevalent across cultures, across genders, and has a late onset (usually adulthood). Also, despite the severity of many of the symptoms, schizophrenia for many people can be treated with pharmaceuticals.