Schizophrenia Essay, Research Paper

This mental disorder. However, it is proven that one is more apt to obtain schizophrenia if there is a member in their family that has had this disease already leaving those who do not have a family member with schizophrenia to be very unlikely to acquire it. Another way of acquiring schizophrenia in the inherited sense is through a dietary factor. This would mean that a certain food would trigger schizophrenia in a household present in the member of the family that eats that food (Torrey 80).

Early in this disease, there may be obsession with religion, matters of the supernatural, or abstract causes of creation. Speech may be characterized by unclear symbolism’s. Later, words and phrases may become puzzling, and these can only be understood as part of the person’s private fantasy world. People who have been ill with schizophrenia for a long time often have speech patterns that are disoriented and aimless and deficient of meaning to the casual observer. Sexual activity is frequently altered in mental disorders. Homosexual concerns may be associated with all psychoses but are most prominent with paranoia. Doubts concerning sexual identity, exaggerated sexual needs, altered sexual performance and fears of intimacy are prominent in schizophrenia. The process of regression in schizophrenia is accompanied by increased self-fixation, isolation, and masturbatory behavior. The schizophrenic person finds himself or herself in a painful dilemma. He or she retreats from personal intimacy or closeness because of the intense fear that closeness will be followed by rejection or harm. This retreat from intimacy leaves the person lonely and isolated. This dilemma often becomes the care-taker’s dilemma. The care-taker wishes to form a productive emotional bond but at the same time seeks to lessen the person’s anxiety. The schizophrenic person, who moves toward emotional closeness, will eventually increase anxiety. The dopamine theory of schizophrenia is based on the action of the neuroleptic drugs, better known as antipsychotic drugs. Neuroleptics are the drugs of choice for treating the symptoms of schizophrenia. The neuroleptics are believed to block the dopamine receptors in the brain, limiting the activity of dopamine and reducing the symptoms of schizophrenia. Amphetamines, just the opposite, enhance dopamine transmission. Amphetamines produce an excess of dopamine in the brain and can provoke the symptoms of schizophrenia in a schizophrenic client. In large doses, amphetamines can simulate symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia in a nonschizophrenic person. Some symptoms of schizophrenia are due basically to hyperdopaminergic activity. Other symptoms, such as apathy and poverty of thought, are related to neuronal loss. Drugs reduce most of the disturbing, disorganizing, and destructive aspects of the schizophrenic person’s behavior. Drugs, however, do not improve or affect the fundamental stupor, unresponsiveness, lack of ambition, and symbolic defects. (Torrey 82)

There was recently a study attempting to find the cause of the hallucinations of schizophrenics. They studied six schizophrenics who were having hallucinations. They used a device known as a PET scan, and had the patients acknowledge when there were experiencing these hallucinations. By doing this the doctors could see what was going on in the brain at the time the patient had the hallucinations. During this study, the researchers found that during the hallucinations, interconnected areas deep within the brain’s core

and other areas on the surface were activated. It is also thought that depending on which area of brain that is affected, will determine what the schizophrenic sees or hears during their hallucinations. Doctors hope to continue this type of study, and hopefully help to treat these hallucinations and all schizophrenics better. (USA Today, November 10, 1995)

A prime example of an early schizophrenic is Rhoda Torrey, sister of the father of schizophrenic researcher E. Fuller Torrey. E. Fuller Torrey came home one day to find his sister acting delusional. E. Fuller Torrey says, “She was lying out in the front yard yelling, ‘The British are coming.’ Actually, what was coming was schizophrenia.” (Winerip 28). It is thought by scientists as well as E. Fuller Torrey that the sudden death of their father at a young age caused his sister to go into mental shock. After all, she was, before this tragic event, an attractive high school senior with decent grades. It seemed to everybody that knew her, that she just flipped from normal to schizophrenic overnight (Winerip 28).

An example of the genetic cause is a girl by the name of Dorothy. Her mother was hospitalized for schizophrenia for two years during her early childhood and her brother was in an institution for the mentally retarded. Dorothy was a straight “A” student until the age of fifteen when she became sidetracked eventually dropping out of school by the age of sixteen. She then went to work as a domestic, married, and eventually had three children. Dorothy was doing fine until she started to hear airplanes constantly passing over her head. She also repetitively heard voices and thought people were trying to kill her. Due to her delusions, Dorothy neglected her children starting the schizophrenic process over through them. Dorothy has still not recovered from schizophrenia and is allowed home for brief periods at a time to visit with her children (Torrey 71).

Various treatments are used in handling schizophrenia. One such treatment, considered by numerous people as the best treatment, is the use of drugs and medications. “Drugs do not ‘cure,’ but rather ‘control,’ the symptoms of schizophrenia – as they do those of diabetes.” (Torrey 111). The drugs used in treating schizophrenics are called antipsychotics. In the controlling aspect of schizophrenia, the drugs try to reduce the symptoms of the mental disorder. They also shorten the stay in hospitals by a considerable amount giving the schizophrenic a good feeling about them. An individual taking the drugs has a sixty percent chance of not being rehospitalized, while an individual not taking the drugs has only a twenty percent chance of not being rehospitalized. The injectable form of drugs are much more efficient due to the schizophrenic being forced to take the drugs as opposed to the schizophrenic having a choice when swallowing a pill or a liquid (Torrey 111). Another treatment that has been used is group psychotherapy. This treatment has been used to no avail though seeing as how it is not too effective in the traditional state. There are two types of group psychotherapy that are used: interpersonal and intrapersonal. The interpersonal groups focus on what the schizophrenic is doing at the present time. An example of this might be if one asked the question, “Why did you ignore me?” The intrapersonal groups focus on what the schizophrenic is like in association to other schizophrenics in the group. An example of this might be if one asked the question, “Why do you have low self-esteem?” (Torrey 127). Long term group psychotherapy may be detrimental to the schizophrenic. This is due to talking about how the individuals became schizophrenic. When the schizophrenics talk about what happened to them they have a chance to relapse back to when they became schizophrenic. However, groups with educational or social focuses have proven to be beneficial. The social support provides friendships whi

h in turn present the fact that these people may trust somebody beyond themselves. The educational state of a group provides the illusion that what the schizophrenic is in is not really a group at all, but really a learning center (Torrey 127). It would help greatly if better rehabilitation programs were offered after hospital treatment. One such approach is the use of half-way houses or hospices, which can ease a patient’s return to the community. The half-way houses or hospice offer patients supervision and support, without being as restrictive as hospitals. They also keep people near their families. Most important, half-way houses can reduce a person’s chances of being readmitted to a hospital. Although the therapy and drugs help the schizophrenics deal with their problems tremendously there is not enough to go around because states are closing their mental institutes for financial reasons. Even though the cost of mental institutes are high, the schizophrenics are better off being kept in them because they could cause a huge uproar on the streets. Without the mental institutes the schizophrenics will get worse because they are unable to live independently. Many schizophrenics might even be harmful to society because their brain is out of control. The paranoid schizophrenics could go on a rampage and try to kill everyone in sight because they think that everyone is out to hurt them. (Torrey 129).

During the 1950s, mentally disordered people who were harmful to society and themselves could be treated with medications and were able to return safely to their communities. During the 1980s, the cost of health care increased more than any other cost in our national economy. As a result, strategic planning has been made to reduce costs. “The political decision made to deinstitutionalize chronic mental patients started with the appearance of phenothiazine medications. Dramatically reducing the instability influenced by psychosis, these medications were of great significance to many individuals with serious mental disorders. At both the state and federal levels, legislators looked at the high cost of long-term psychiatric hospitalization. Social scientists guaranteed them that community-based care would be in the best interests of all concerned: the mentally ill and the general, tax-paying public (Barry 13).”

It was believed that a social breakdown syndrome would develop in chronically mentally ill persons who were institutionalized. The characteristics of this syndrome were submission to authority, withdrawal, lack of initiative, and excessive dependence on the institution. While deinstitutionalization was kindhearted in its primary logic, the actual execution of the concept has been greatly undermined by the lack of good community alternatives. At this time a large amount of the individuals using community mental health treatment services are the homeless. Nearly half of the homeless are chronically mental ill. These individuals are often separated from their families and all alone on the dangerous street. These homeless schizophrenics stay away from social structures such as community health treatment centers. Since they start a new life of independence they often stop taking their medications, become psychotic and out of place, and begin to live on the street. Since the schizophrenics are deinstitutionalized they are thrown into a whole new world of world of fantasy. This plunge into fantasy results in a loss of contact from reality that can vary from mild to severe, but unfortunately, is usually severe. (Barry 15).