Research Schizophrenia

What Is Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that is often severe. People with schizophrenia have hallucinations and/or delusions. More often, these are auditory hallucinations - seeing things that do not exist. A person suffering from delusions, for example, paranoid delusions, may fear that other people are pursuing and intending to harm them.

Many people with schizophrenia withdraw from the outside world, feel confused, fearful and have suicidal thoughts, especially during psychotic episodes and periods of depression. Other symptoms may include disorganised thinking and speech, and feeling disconnected from emotions.

Schizophrenia can affect anyone and usually has an onset in late adolescence or early adulthood. The diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia is often delayed, due to multiple factors including stigma and access to specialist services. Research has shown that delays in treatment generally lead to poorer outcomes.

In the UK, about 1 in 100 people (about 685,000 people) will get diagnosed with schizophrenia at some point in their life.

From 'The Centre Cannot Hold - My Journey Through Madness'

'Many people confuse schizophrenia with split or multiple personality disorder. They talk of "being schizophrenic about an issue" meaning "of two minds." The mind of the person with schizophrenia, though, is best thought of as shattered, not split. Schizophrenia is called a thought disorder or a psychotic disorder and involves symptoms like delusions, hallucinations and incoherent speech.'

By kind permission of Elyn R. Saks,Orrin B. Evans Distinguished Professor of Law, Professor of Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at USC.