Skip to main content

Schizophrenia: A Description

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences
  • 55 Accesses

Synonyms

Psychosis; Psychotic disorder

Definition

Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder, characterized primarily by thought disturbances, such as delusional thinking, and/or perceptual disturbances, such as hallucinations, as well as social and motivational deficits (i.e., flat or blunted affect, avolition, alogia, and asociality). The thought, perception, and social/motivational disturbances characteristic of schizophrenia often result in comorbid emotional/affective symptoms (e.g., depression or anxiety) and behavioral disturbances (e.g., peculiar, risky, or pointless behaviors).

Introduction

Schizophrenia is the mental health disorder that has perhaps most intrigued the population, both professional and lay, throughout the years. This interest has led to an influx of movies and television shows that serve to perpetuate a number of negative, and ultimately untrue, stereotypes of those suffering from schizophrenia. Movies such as “The Voices” and “Me, Myself, and Irene” represent...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders DSM-IV-TR fourth edition (text revision). American Psychiatric Pub.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andreasen, N. C., & Olsen, S. (1982). Negative vs. positive schizophrenia: Definition and validation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 39(7), 789–794.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2013a). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5). American Psychiatric Pub.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • American Psychiatric Association. (2013b). Highlights of changes from DSM-IV-TR to DSM-5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hosak, L., & Hosakova, J. (2015). The complex etiology of schizophrenia: General state of the art. Neuroendocrinology Letters, 36(7), 631–637.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Large, M., Smith, G., & Nielssen, O. (2009). The relationship between the rate of homicide by those with schizophrenia and the overall homicide rate: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Research, 112(1), 123–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lieberman, J. A., Perkins, D., Belger, A., Chakos, M., Jarskog, F., Boteva, K., & Gilmore, J. (2001). The early stages of schizophrenia: Speculations on pathogenesis, pathophysiology, and therapeutic approaches. Biological Psychiatry, 50(11), 884–897.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miyamoto, S., Duncan, G. E., Marx, C. E., & Lieberman, J. A. (2005). Treatments for schizophrenia: A critical review of pharmacology and mechanisms of action of antipsychotic drugs. Molecular Psychiatry, 10(1), 79–104.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neill, J. (1990). Whatever became of the schizophrenogenic mother? American Journal of Psychotherapy, 44(4), 499–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joseph Finn .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Section Editor information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Finn, J. (2017). Schizophrenia: A Description. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_944-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_944-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics