AQA A Level Psychology: Schizophrenia Latest 2023 Graded A+

Document Content and Description Below

AQA A Level Psychology: Schizophrenia Latest 2023 Graded A+ What is Schizophrenia? ✔✔○ Severe mental disorder characterised by profound disruption of cognition and emotion, affects language, ... perception, thought, affect and sense of self ○ Thoughts & emotions impaired so contact is lost w/external reality ○ Consists of positive (excess or distortion of normal func) and negative (lack of func, weakens ability to cope in everyday activities) symptoms How is SZ diagnosed? ✔✔○ DSM - V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition) used in US while Europe ICD (International Classification of Diseases) is more commonly used (11th version) ◘ Person must have experienced at least 2 symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, organised speech, catatonic behavi, neg symp) or only 1 if symp. is bizarre/persistent hallucinations which affects social functioning & is persistent for 6 mnths w/at least 1 mnth of active symptoms ○ Positive Symptoms: ◘ Hallucinations; bizarre, unreal perceptions of enviro can be auditory, visual, olfactory (smell) or tactile (feeling) ◘ Delusions; bizarre beliefs that seem real to person, can be paranoid in nature (e.g. feeling of being spied on/followed), may involve inflated beliefs (delusions of grandeur), delusions of reference (events directly related to them e.g. 'personal' msgs over TV/radio) ◘ Disorganised speech; abnormal thought process, unable to organise own thoughts and shows up in speech, slip from one topic to another (Derailment), sometimes incoherent (word salad) ◘ Grossly disorganised or catatonic behaviour; inability/motivation to initiate task/complete, rigid postures, aimless motor activity ○ Negative Symptoms: ◘ Speech poverty (alogia); lessening of speech fluency and productivity, reflect slow/blocked thoughts, fewer words in given time ◘ Avolition; reduction of interests/desires, inability to initiate/persist in goal-directed behave, reduction in self-initiated involvement in activities available to patient ◘ Affective flattening; reduction in range/intensity of emotional expression, fewer body/facial movements, deficit in prosody (intonation, tempo, loudness and pausing) ◘ Anhedonia; loss of interest/pleasure in all activities/lack of reactivity to normally pleasurable stimuli, physical (food, bodily contact etc), social (int [Show More]

Last updated: 1 year ago

Preview 1 out of 22 pages