Реферат: Schizophrenia A Life Destroyer Essay Research Paper

Schizophrenia A Life Destroyer Essay, Research Paper

Schizophrenia

A Life Destroyer Schizophrenia is one of the most common serious psychiatric illnesses.

It affects one percent of the general population. This is a socially and financially devastating

disease that robs people of their most productive years of life. Schizophrenia still continues to be

one of the most complex, puzzling and disabling of the major mental illnesses. Most symptoms

develop in men around the age of sixteen and twenty-five years old, and around twenty-five to

thirty years old in women. Schizophrenia rarely develops in children and most schizophrenics

appear to have a normal childhood. A delusion, which is a false belief that defies logic and

common sense, is a common symptom of schizophrenia. The person thinks someone is watching

them constantly or they think people can read their mind. Hallucinations, hearing, seeing or

sensing something that isn?t there, are another common symptom of schizophrenia. Some people

experience heightened senses, which is hypersensitivity of sense that leads to visual distortions.

Others experience auditory hallucinations. They sometimes carry on conversations or are told to

do things by one or may voices that are not there. Very rarely, but still as devastating, some

experience visual hallucinations or smell odd smells coming from themselves. (Young, 67-68)

More that 300,000 adults in this country are unable to distinguish their imaginations from reality

(Cookson pg. 12).

In the 1700?s and the 1800?s, before much was known about mental diseases,

schizophrenia was thought of as witchcraft (Nichols pg. 1). Anyone who displayed signs of this

disease was thought to have been possessed. The Puritans believed “distraction”, as they called

it, was either possession by the devil, or punishment for sins. Yet, the strange behavior of those

afflicted was looked upon with tolerance. Through much of the 1700?s, family or friends were

expected to take care of the mentally ill. Dorothea Dix was a school teacher who took up the

cause of the mentally ill in the mid 1800?s, found disturbed individuals living in sordid

conditions, “confined in cages, closets, cellars, stalls and pens: chained, naked, beaten with rods

and lashed into obedience.” She worked to help these people live a more normal life. (Goode

pg. 55)

A dismal outlook for schizophrenia was dramatically changed in the 1950?s with the

--> ЧИТАТЬ ПОЛНОСТЬЮ <--