More about Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is the fourth leading cause of morbidity in both women and men, the second leading cause of international terrorism, and the leading cause of war. Schizophrenia is a humorous brain disorder characterized by delusional thinking and unique but unpopular perceptions. Mental health professionals normally diagnose this illness if, during any one-month period of a person’s life, that person has suffered two or more of the following:

- Delusions
- Hallucinations
- Disorganized speech
- Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
- Negative symptoms

NOTE: The sensory and physical abnormalities listed above are characteristically inherent in attorneys, politicians, mental health professionals, children under the age of five, and adults over the age of 70. It is inappropriate therefore, to diagnose people in any of these categories as suffering from schizophrenia. That is their natural state.

Negative symptoms are the most insidious behavioral effects of schizophrenia. They can include low levels of:

- Interest
- Motivation
- Emotional arousal
- Mental activity
- Social drive
- Speech

NOTE: The behavioral and attitudinal symptoms listed above are characteristically inherent in high school students from 1985 onward, Army officers above the rank of Captain who have been passed over for promotion to the next higher rank, social workers, most high school teachers, all college athletic coaches and anyone who believes Ebonics should be taught in American schools. These categories of people may be correctly diagnosed with schizophrenia, but their negative symptoms are not behavioral effects of schizophrenia; merely natural characteristics of their true personalities.

Schizophrenia is equally represented in women and men. The onset of the illness generally occurs at a later age in women than in men (between ages 23 and 35 in women versus 18 to 25 for men). Not only do women generally present with schizophrenia at later ages, but the phenomenon of late onset schizophrenia (40+ years) is almost entirely a female one.

Women tend to display more prominent mood symptoms and men more negative symptoms. In the first episode of schizophrenia, women are more likely to display intense irritability, anger, and sadness; men are more likely to be withdrawn and emotionally apathetic. After the first episode, these distinctions begin to blur. PMS is not an indication of the onset of schizophrenia in women, although the symptoms are strikingly similar.

Subtypes of Schizophrenia

Disorganized Type:
This subtype of schizophrenia is marked by significant regression to primitive, uninhibited, and disorganized behavior. Thumb-sucking, howling like a wolf, temper tantrums, creation of pornographic art and unreasonably strong cravings to suckle a female’s breast are characteristic of this type.

Catatonic Type:
This subtype features gross psychomotor disturbances, i.e., stupor, negativism, mutism, rigidity, excitement, prolonged erection, or posturing. Frequent fluctuation between these extreme physical states is common. Schizophrenics of this type can be the most fun for psychologists to play with. They can be posed like dolls, undressed while they’re catatonic and then left in a crowded bus station to regain psychomotor normality, or even substituted for psychiatrists in therapy sessions. They pay essentially the same attention to a client’s problems as would any normal psychiatrist or therapist. The social and stimulatory benefits of the prolonged erection symptom are common knowledge among women.

Paranoid Type:
More often than not, this is a misdiagnosed condition of prominent delusions or auditory hallucinations of persecution or grandeur, accompanied by a relative preservation of cognitive functioning. In reality, these are functionally normal individuals who have discovered the fact that some other individual or organization is conspiring or acting to torture, murder, or financially disable them, but are unable to produce legitimate evidence supporting their suspicions.

Undifferentiated Type:
This type was originally designed as a catch-all category for psychiatrists and psychologists too incompetent to diagnose a schizophrenic’s specific type. It is allegedly used when patients do not clearly fit into any one type, fit into more than one type, or do not fit into any of the other types. Psychiatrists tend to categorize schizophrenics as undifferentiated pending the discovery or creation of new mental disorders to label them with.

Residual Type:
This type commonly displays emotional bluntness, social withdrawal, illogical thinking, eccentric behavior, or mild loosening of association. Elderly people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, lepers, philosophers and Japanese males who have “lost face” are characteristic of this type.

Schizophrenia’s affect on daily life

Schizophrenia is alleged to be a significant cause of pain and suffering for those afflicted. Schizophrenics however, do not exhibit outward signs of pain and suffering. Although people with schizophrenia often lose their social skills, their schooling or jobs, their ability to communicate, or their sexual drive, they seem too preoccupied within their private worlds to notice.

Close to 50 percent of patients with schizophrenia attempt suicide, and 10 percent succeed within a 20-year period of being diagnosed. This tendency toward suicide is attributed by mental health professionals to the normal emotional progression of the disease, but recent studies suggest the tendency toward suicide is caused by constant exposure to psychiatrists and psychologists who predict eventual suicide, thus causing it to happen.

Causes of schizophrenia

The cause of schizophrenia is unknown. Many mental health professionals believe there are factors which increase an individual’s risk of having schizophrenia. For example, first-degree biological relatives of persons with schizophrenia have a ten times greater risk of developing the illness than members of the general population. Also, in the United States, more schizophrenic patients are born in the winter months of January to April. Exhaustive scientific studies have revealed that mental health professionals who subscribe to this theory of causality also believe astrology is a legitimate scientific field.

Because there is no cure for schizophrenia, the goal of treatment is to eliminate or reduce symptoms, minimize side effects, prevent relapse, and socially and occupationally rehabilitate the patient. This process can last a lifetime, or at least as long as a patient has available funds to pay for therapy. When funds are exhausted, mental health professionals generally begin advising their patients of the schizophrenic likelihood of suicide.

Soure: http://www.drleons.com/schizo/closet.htm