Psychology
December 5, 2014
Professor Cook
Psychology
5 December 2014
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder. It debilitates the brain and affects the person’s behavior. It affects the normal functions of the brain. People with schizophrenia have trouble thinking clearly and managing their emotions. Most of the time they may seem paranoid believing people are trying to control their thoughts. Even though people with schizophrenia don’t appear to be ill physically they might have weird behavior.
Schizophrenia affects 2.4 million people every year. Schizophrenia doesn’t occur in any certain type of people. It affects all races and sexes, although it occurs in men of the ages 18 to 25 earlier age then women who get it between 26 and 35. Schizophrenia in children is very rare. Schizophrenia usually only comes on in people ages 16 through 30, and doesn’t affect people over the age of 45.
The symptoms of schizophrenia are placed into three different categories positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. Positive symptoms are not symptoms that change the person’s physical behavior directly, but it adds on to the person’s normal way of functioning. Positive symptoms include delusions and hallucinations, paranoia, and distorted thinking and behavior. When someone has a hallucination they hear voices and see and feel things that are not really there. If you are around someone that is hallucinating don’t argue with them that it is not real because to that person it seems real. When someone has delusions they believe strongly that something is real when it has been proven not to be. They think that others are trying to hurt them or are monitoring them. Someone that has delusions would believe that the TV is trying to give them a message that something bad is going to happen when it is really not. If you are around someone that is having a delusion do not try to tell them they are crazy just simply turn off the TV. Distorted