PSYC 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15.4: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Solitude, Biopsychosocial Model
14 Dec 2016
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PSYC 15.4
Schizophrenia
• A brain disease that causes the person to experience significant breaks from reality, a lack of integration of
thoughts and emotions, and problems with attention and memory
• Regarded to as one of the most devastating psychological illnesses
• Earliest writings describe it as people who have lost touch of reality, who hear voices from within, and
produce bizarre speech or behaviours
o Thought they were possessed by demons or spirits at the time
Symptoms and Types of Schizophrenia
• Symptoms may occur and escalate very gradually, remaining unnoticeable for a long time before family
members start to notice a pattern
o In other cases they can being and escalate rapidly
• Misguided beliefs
o People have more than one personality
▪ This is a dissociative identity disorder
o It is solely an organic brain disease that only responds to medication
▪ Strongly affected by social factors (family support and life events that cause stress)
o Does not easily get steadily worse
▪ Symptoms fluctuate over time
• Three distinctive phases
o Prodromal phase
▪ People may become easily confused and have difficulty organizing their thoughts, they
may lose interest and begin to withdraw from friends and family, and they may lose their
normal motivations, withdraw from life, and spend increasing amounts of time alone,
often deeply engrossed in their own thoughts
▪ Not uncommon for other people to get upset because of these behaviours
• Assume person is lazy or being irresponsible
o Active phase
▪ People typically experience delusional thoughts, hallucinations, or disorganized patterns
of thoughts, emotions, and behaviour
o Residual phase
▪ People’s predominant symptoms have disappeared or lessened considerably, and they
may simply be withdrawn, have trouble concentrating, and generally lack motivation
o Some people cycle through three stages only a couple times during their life whereas others cycle
repeatedly
o Severity of withdrawal in residual phase tends to increase with repeated episodes
o Ability to function tends to decrease after each active episode they go through
• Most significant and characteristic symptoms
o Hallucinations: alterations in perception, such that a person hears, sees, smells, feels, or tastes
something that does not actually exist, except in that person’s own mind
o Delusions: beliefs that are not based on reality (at least from the perspective of the person’s
general culture)
▪ May believe they are someone famous, or their bodies are not under they’re control but
are being controlled by alien beings
▪ May find special significance in common events in the world and feel like they have a
special connection with reality or some sort of unusual power (ability to control wind)
o Disorganized patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving: describes the considerable difficulty
people with schizophrenia may have completing the tasks of everyday life
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