Schizophrenia is a highly-complex and often misunderstood mental-health disorder that imposes many challenges on the people who suffer from it and the health-professionals who treat it. Whilst huge-swathes of research have been dedicated to a greater understanding of it, since its recognition as a disorder in 1911, the precise causes of it are still unknown and subject to much speculation.
However whilst the causes remain a mystery, it is widely thought that factors such as genetics and brain chemistry play a role, and that chronic substance-abuse can contribute to its onset. It is also thought that other mental-health issues such as depression, anxiety, chronic-stress and traumatic experiences can have an impact on its onset.
Symptoms associated with the disorder can include vivid and disturbing hallucinations, the inability to think rationally, difficulties interacting with people in a coherent or meaningful manner and an impending sense of doom – often produced by extreme-paranoia. Additional symptoms can include inertia, social-withdrawal, the reluctance for sufferers to express themselves and poor concentration. Within the medical community, five different sub-types of schizophrenia have been classified, and each one has different levels of severity. For instance – Disorganised Schizophrenia usually manifests itself in confused thinking and the inability to undertake simple tasks such as bathing and dressing, whereas Paranoid Schizophrenia can often lead to persecution delusions and complex conspiracy-theories. Whilst many people tend to associate schizophrenia with visual hallucinations, auditory hallucinations can be equally common and distressing. They can influence behaviour in sufferers by being perceived as real as the spoken words of people – leading to dialogues within the minds of sufferers, as though they are responding in a normative-manner to external stimulus.
Diagnosis of the disorder usually involves a thorough process of psychological-evaluation and will determine the medications and therapies that can be used for treatment.
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