Classification & Diagnosis of Schizophrenia

Definition: Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that damages sufferers' perception of the world and contact with reality. This leads to unusual sensory experiences.

Schizophrenics can experience positive and negative symptoms.

Positive symptoms: Additional experiences that schizophrenia causes.

• hallucinations - unusual sensory experiences of things that aren't there. for instance, the sufferer may hear voices or see things.
• delusions - irrational and false beliefs. a common delusion is believing that one is an important historical figure, like the Queen or even Jesus.

Negative symptoms: The degradation of existing experiences.

• speech poverty - schizophrenics may have reduced quality and amount of speech. They may be incapable of speaking about something for extended amounts of time and suddenly change the subject (speech disorganisation) or speak incredibly slowly and in a slurred manner.
• avolition - this is when sufferers become entirely apathetic and have no desire to do what is expected of them in everyday life (e.g.: work or school)

AO3:

Disadvantages:

• Slater and Roth (1969): Hallucinations are the least important of all symptoms because they aren't exclusive to schizophrenic people. People suffering from bipolarism and depression can also experience them. The same can be said about avolition and delusions. Infact, the central theme of Beck's negative triad is dispelling…