Schizophrenia

In 1908, Eugen Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist, introduced the term schizophrenia, which replaced the term dementia praecox, used bu Emil Kraepelin (1896). Kraepelin viewed this disorder as a deteriorating organic disease. Bleuler viewed it as a serious disruption of the mind, a splitting of the mind.

Four A’s

A – Inappropriate Affect

A – Loosening of Associations

A – Autistic Thoughts

A – Ambivalence

These four A’s provide a memory tool for recalling how schizophrenia affects thinking, mood, thought process, and decision-making ability.

Positive and Negative Symptoms:

POSITIVE:

• ·        Delusions
• ·        Hallucinations
• ·        Hostility
• ·        Disorganized thinking/behaviors

NEGATIVE:

• ·        Alogia
• ·        Affective blunting
• ·        Anhedonia
• ·        Asociality
• ·        Avolition
• ·        Apathy

Subtypes of Schiziphrenia: paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated and residual type.