Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that dramatically disrupts one’s ability to think clearly, participate in daily life, and trust one’s own sense of reality, all of which can persist long-term.
Previously, schizophrenia was organized into different categories (catatonic, disorganized, paranoid, and undifferentiated). The current view that experts take is viewing schizophrenia as a spectrum disorder since symptoms tend to overlap throughout the natural history of the illness.
A common experience among those who live with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder is psychosis. Psychosis is the state at which impacts perception, thinking, speech, behavior, and one’s ability to function on a day-to-day basis.
Common symptoms include the following:
- Hallucinations: Sensory experiences that appear real but are actually created by one’s own mind. Hallucinations can occur in any of the five senses, such as seeing or hearing things that are not there.
- Delusions: Mistaken but firmly held beliefs, like thinking one has superpowers, is a famous person, or people are out to get you.
Types of Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders
- Schizoaffective disorder: Has features of schizophrenia and features of a mood disorder (either major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder), including psychosis, depression, and mania. The person must experience psychosis for at least two weeks when they are not having a depressive or manic episode. Depressive or manic episode symptoms are present over half of the duration of the condition.
- Delusional disorder: The person has experienced at least one delusion for at least one month but has never met the criteria for schizophrenia. Functional impairment is due to the delusion only and not experienced outside of it.
- Brief psychotic disorder: An episode of psychotic behavior with a sudden onset lasting less than a month, followed by complete remission. Another psychotic episode in the future is possible.
In all cases, studies show that the best predictor of recovery and relapse prevention is early intervention with coordinated specialty care combined with opportunities for social engagement.
