Psychology 240
Analyzing Psychological Disorders
Tanya Harrell
Psy/240
06/09/2013
Schizophrenia one of the more common psychological disorders, also called mental illnesses. Schizophrenia affects behavior as well as thoughts, and encompasses many different things, including auditory hallucinations and mood swings. At some point this disorder may even manifest itself into a psychotic phase that involves delusions and disorganized speech along with bizarre behavior. People who have schizophrenia believe that the hallucinations are real, and even if they don’t believe that the hallucination is real, it seems real. The way that schizophrenia manifests itself is different from person to person. Some people can manage to live life fully independently with schizophrenia, and with medication can keep it under control. However, other people may never be able to function fully, and will not be able to live on their own due to the delusions and hallucinations. In severe progressions of this disorder, people lose the ability to keep in touch with reality, and become paranoid and anti-social, while often being petrified of the hallucinations that they live with. It is still unknown as to what causes schizophrenia, and unfortunately there have been no successful tests to try to determine what could be the causes of the disorder. Although it is unknown as to what causes the disorder, there have been cat scans and MRI’s done on people with schizophrenia which shows a tendency for the people with schizophrenia to have neurological abnormalities. People with schizophrenia have a tendency to show a decreased brain tissue, decreased volume of the temporal lobe and thalamus, enlargement of the lateral ventricles, a large cavum septum pellucidi, and hypofrontality. Hypofrontality is a decreased metabolic functioning of the frontal lobes as well as decreased blood flow to the frontal lobes. These abnormalities are not found with every schizophrenic person, and most people do not exhibit all
Tanya Harrell
Psy/240
06/09/2013
Schizophrenia one of the more common psychological disorders, also called mental illnesses. Schizophrenia affects behavior as well as thoughts, and encompasses many different things, including auditory hallucinations and mood swings. At some point this disorder may even manifest itself into a psychotic phase that involves delusions and disorganized speech along with bizarre behavior. People who have schizophrenia believe that the hallucinations are real, and even if they don’t believe that the hallucination is real, it seems real. The way that schizophrenia manifests itself is different from person to person. Some people can manage to live life fully independently with schizophrenia, and with medication can keep it under control. However, other people may never be able to function fully, and will not be able to live on their own due to the delusions and hallucinations. In severe progressions of this disorder, people lose the ability to keep in touch with reality, and become paranoid and anti-social, while often being petrified of the hallucinations that they live with. It is still unknown as to what causes schizophrenia, and unfortunately there have been no successful tests to try to determine what could be the causes of the disorder. Although it is unknown as to what causes the disorder, there have been cat scans and MRI’s done on people with schizophrenia which shows a tendency for the people with schizophrenia to have neurological abnormalities. People with schizophrenia have a tendency to show a decreased brain tissue, decreased volume of the temporal lobe and thalamus, enlargement of the lateral ventricles, a large cavum septum pellucidi, and hypofrontality. Hypofrontality is a decreased metabolic functioning of the frontal lobes as well as decreased blood flow to the frontal lobes. These abnormalities are not found with every schizophrenic person, and most people do not exhibit all
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