SCHIZOPHRENIA
This is the most common psychosis.
It was once called dementia praecox (early loss of mind) because it often
appears between the ages of 15 and 30. Schizophrenia means split mind but the
illness is not simply a mental fragmentation. It is an extensive deterioration
of the personality and a breaking away from reality, a retreat into an unreal
world. Schizophrenia manifests itself gradually as a rule, but it may show up
abruptly as an acute attack of confusion.
The individual becomes increasingly withdrawn; his emotions become
distorted or fade. Schizophrenia takes four forms. Simple schizophrenics are
apathetic, inattentive, detached, and indifferent to their surroundings.
Hebephrenic escape from reality through infantile devices-baby talk,
thumb-sucking, incontinence
Paranoids experience delusions .of grandeur, considering themselves to be
famous figures (the President, Napoleon, even God), or they suffer from ideas
of persecution, convinced that they are being hounded, that someone is out to
get them. Catatonics may sit motionless for hours or even days, totally
unreachable, much like statues, refusing food, and then suddenly they may go
into a wild frenzy.
PARANOIA
This psychosis also is called monomania, delusional in- sanity, and
persecutory insanity. Although a paranoid person is extremely ill, he may seem
to act fairly normally. He may have adequate memory, logical reasoning, and
show no apparent confusion, although his judgment is impaired. The disorder
usually strikes between the ages of 30 and SO, particularly among individuals
who have been suspicious, jealous, self-centered. A victim of paranoia suffers
increasing delusions, seeing hidden meanings in many things that convince him
he is being plotted against-by such means as x-ray or hypnotism. Often, he
feels he must defend himself by lawsuits or antisocial acts which may even
include murder. Some paranoiacs are referred to as maniacs-for example, the
pyromaniac who may set fire to buildings in order to destroy the" evil
people" in them.
MANIC-DEPRESSIVE PSYCHOSIS
In this illness, there is alternating extreme moods-periods of mania,
with grossly exaggerated feelings of well-being and elation, and supreme
overconfidence; and periods of melancholia, with equally exaggerated feelings
of misery during which a sense of profound, unjustified guilt may make the
victim immobile. Normal people have ups and downs of mood. The changes may be
rhythmical in nature, alternating from day to day, sometimes within the same
day. But such mood variations are quite different from the wild elation and
profound unhappiness of manic-depressive psychosis.
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