What is schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric condition that has severe effects on your physical and mental well-being. It disrupts how your brain works, interfering with things like your thoughts, memory, senses and behaviors. As a result, you may struggle in many parts of your day-to-day life. Untreated schizophrenia often disrupts your relationships (professional, social, romantic and otherwise). It can also cause you to have trouble organizing your thoughts, and you might behave in ways that put you at risk for injuries or other illnesses.
What are the types of schizophrenia?
Psychiatrists once referred to different types of schizophrenia, like paranoid schizophrenia and catatonic schizophrenia. But the types weren’t very useful in diagnosing or treating schizophrenia. Instead, experts now view schizophrenia as a spectrum of conditions, including:
- Schizotypal personality disorder (which also falls under the category of personality disorders).
- Delusional disorder.
- Brief psychotic disorder.
- Schizophreniform disorder.
- Schizoaffective disorder.
- Other schizophrenia spectrum disorders (specified or unspecified). This diagnosis allows healthcare providers to diagnose unusual variations of schizophrenia.
What are the five symptoms of schizophrenia?
Many people with schizophrenia can’t recognize that they have symptoms of schizophrenia. But those around you might. These are the five main symptoms of schizophrenia
- Delusions: These are false beliefs that you hold even when there’s plenty of evidence that those beliefs are wrong. For example, you might think that someone is controlling what you think, say or do.
- Hallucinations: You still think you can see, hear, smell, touch or taste things that don’t exist, like hearing voices.
- Disorganized or incoherent speaking: You may have trouble organizing your thoughts while speaking. This might look like trouble staying on topic, or your thoughts might be so jumbled that people can’t understand you.
- Disorganized or unusual movements: You might move differently than people around you expect. For example, you may turn around a lot for no clear reason, or you might not move much at all.
- Negative symptoms: These refer to a reduction or loss of your ability to do things as expected. For example, you might stop making facial expressions, or speak with a flat, emotionless voice. Negative symptoms also include a lack of motivation, especially when you don’t want to socialize or do things you ordinarily enjoy.
What causes schizophrenia?
There’s no one single cause of schizophrenia. Experts suspect schizophrenia happens for different reasons. The three main reasons include:
- Imbalances in chemical signals your brain uses for cell-to-cell communication.
- Brain development problems before birth.
- Loss of connections between different areas of your brain.
What causes schizophrenia?
Your (or your loved one’s) healthcare provider can diagnose schizophrenia or its related disorders based on a combination of questions they ask, the symptoms you describe or by observing your actions. They’ll also ask questions to rule out other potential causes of your symptoms. They then compare what they find to the criteria required for a schizophrenia diagnosis.
According to the DSM-5, a schizophrenia diagnosis requires the following:
- At least two of the five main symptoms.
- You’ve had symptoms for at least one month.
- Your symptoms impact your ability to work or your relationships (friendly, romantic, professional or otherwise).