Chapter 14

This chapter is overall about the different psychological disorders so instead of talking about everything covered in the chapter, I think I'll answer one question on the disorder known as schizophrenia.

So the question that I'm going to answer is.. What are the main symptoms of schizophrenia?

One common symptom is called a delusion, or a false/untrue belief held by someone that won't accept any proof that they are wrong. Although delusions aren't apparent in every type of schizophrenia, it is the symptom most associated with the disorder. There are four main types of disorders that do associate with schizophrenia and they are: delusions of persecution, delusions of reference, delusions of influence, and delusions of grandeur. The persecution delusions involve a schizophrenic thinking that other people are trying to hurt them in some way. Reference involves a schizophrenic thinking that other people, television characters, books, movies, or anything like that, are specifically talking to them. Influence involves a schizophrenic thinking that they are being controlled by external forces such as the devil or aliens. Grandeur involves them thinking that they are powerful people who are destined to save the world or are on some kind of important mission.

Another symptom is disturbance of speech such as made up words, repeated words/sentences, and sentences that don't make any sense but consist of only rhyming words. Overall speech and thought also seem to be interrupted often, and thoughts generally aren't relatively logical.

People with schizophrenia may also have hallucinations or false sensory perceptions, such as seeing people or hearing voices that aren't actually there. Although, hallucinations don't necessarily have to be related to sight or hearing, but those 2 senses are the most common to be affected.

There is also something called the flat effect that happens, this is a condition in which the person shows little/no emotion or experience certain emotions at the wrong time.

Lack of attention and organization are symptoms as well.