Question

Describe the major symptoms of Schizophrenia.

Answer 1

1. Positive symptoms: These behaviours are an excess of an addition to the normal thoughts or behaviours of an individual. It includes:
   1. Hallucinations: Hallucination is false perceptions in the absence of a stimulus. It can be auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory or may be related to internal sensations of the body.
   2. Delusions: Delusion occurs when an individual has a belief which is false but he is not ready to change it in spite of clear contrary evidence.
   3. Disorganised speech and loosening of association: A person’s talk is unrelated, i.e., he may use useless words or may jump from one point to another which has no connection to the first.
   4. Disorganised behaviour (Bizarre movements): A person behaves in a very strange manner, i.e. doing the same act for hours together, screaming without reason, running here and there without purpose, attacking or biting someone, undressing clothes in public places, etc.
   5. Incongruent affect: Emotions expressed by a person do not match the situation. e.g. he cries on happy occasions and laughs on sad occasions.
2. Negative symptoms: Negative symptoms lead to low levels of functioning and so the quality of the life deteriorates. Generally negative symptoms of schizophrenia does not improve much with treatment. They are:

1. Diminished emotional expression
2. Lack of initiative or enthusiasm
3. Diminished and reduced speech
4. Anhedonia (no experience of deep positive emotions)
5. Asocial
6. Apathy

Sometimes both positive as well as negative symptoms can be seen in schizophrenia patients. If positive symptoms are seen for one month or longer or if negative symptoms are seen for more than six months, the person is diagnosed having schizophrenia.