Schizophrenia: What are the Clinical Characteristics?

Schizophrenia can be defined as having both positive, and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are those that appear to reflect an excess or distortion of normal functions. Negative symptoms are those that appear to reflect a loss of normal functions. These often persist during periods of low (or possibly even absent) symptoms. There are a number of positive and negative symptoms:

Positive Symptoms:

• Delusions: These are bizarre beliefs that seem to be real to the schizophrenic, but they are not actually real. Sometimes these delusions can be paranoid in nature. It is possible that delusions also involve inflated beliefs about the person's power and importance.

• Experiences of control: This is where the person may believe they are under the control of an alien force that has invaded their mind and/or body.

• Hallucinations: These are bizarre, unreal perceptions of the environment that are more commonly auditory, but can also be visual, olfactory, or tactile. Auditory hallucinations include hearing voices, whereas visual hallucinations include seeing objects, lights or faces. In addition, olfactory hallucinations are to do with scent, and being able to smell things that are not in reality, whereas tactile hallucinations are to do with touch, and being able to feel things that are not there, such as bugs crawling on the skin.

Negative Symptoms:

• Affective flattening: These are a reduction in the range and intensity of emotional expression, including facial expression, voice tone, eye contact and body language.

• Alogia: These are poverties of speech, characterised by the lessening of speech fluency and productivity. This is thought to reflect slowing or blocked thoughts.

• Avolition: This is the reduction, or inability to initiate and persist in, goal-directed behaviour (for example, sitting around all day, doing absolutely nothing); it is often mistaken for apparent disinterest.

These are the clinical characteristics of Schizophrenia, and it is claimed that the diagnosis of schizophrenia itself requires at least a one-month duration of two or more positive symptoms of the disorder.

I hope this has been of interest, and thank you for taking your time to read :)