Psychology2016

Psychological Disorders 573

sentences persistently, string words together on the basis of sounds (called clanging,
such as “come into house, louse, mouse, mouse and cheese, please, sneeze”), and
experience sudden interruptions in speech or thought. Thoughts are significantly
disturbed as well, with individuals with schizophrenia having a hard time link-
ing their thoughts together in a logical fashion, and in advanced schizophrenia,
they may express themselves in a meaningless and jumbled mixture of words and
phrases sometimes referred to as a word salad. Attention is also a problem for many
people with schizophrenia. They seem to have trouble “screening out” information
and stimulation that they don’t really need, causing them to be unable to focus on
information that is relevant (Asarnow et al., 1991; Luck & Gold, 2008).
People with schizophrenia may also have hallucinations, in which they hear
voices or see things or people that are not really there. Hearing voices is actually
more common and one of the key symptoms in making a diagnosis of schizophrenia
(Kuhn & Nasar, 2001; Nasar, 1998). Hallucinations involving touch, smell, and taste
are less common but also possible. Emotional disturbances are also a key feature of
schizophrenia. Flat affect is a condition in which the person shows little or no emotion.
Emotions can also be excessive and/or inappropriate—a person might laugh when it
would be more appropriate to cry or show sorrow, for example. The person’s behavior
may also become disorganized and extremely odd. The person may not respond to the
outside world and either doesn’t move at all, maintaining often odd-looking postures
for hours on end, or moves about wildly in great agitation. Both extremes, either wildly
excessive movement or total lack thereof, are referred to as catatonia.
Another way of describing symptoms in schizophrenia is to group them by the way
they relate to normal functioning. Positive symptoms appear to reflect an excess or distortion
of normal functions, such as hallucinations and delusions. Negative symptoms appear to
reflect a decrease of normal functions, such as poor attention or lack of affect (American Psy-
chiatric Association, 2013). According to the American Psychiatric Association (2013), at least
two or more of the following symptoms must be present frequently for at least 1 month to
diagnose schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, negative symptoms,
and grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior, and at least one of the two symptoms has to
be delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech. The video Positive and Negative Symp-
toms of Schizophrenia summarizes the key positive and negative symptoms of the disorder.

Dr. John Nash is a famous mathematician who won

the Nobel Prize for mathematics in 1994. His fame,

however, is more due to the fact that Nash once

suffered from a form of schizophrenia in which he

experienced delusions of persecution. He at one time

believed that aliens were trying to contact him through

the newspaper (delusions of reference). His life story

and remarkable recovery from schizophrenia are

portrayed in the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind, which

starred Russell Crowe as Nash.

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Watch the Video Positive and Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia

hallucinations

false sensory perceptions, such as

hearing voices that do not really exist.

flat affect

a lack of emotional responsiveness.

catatonia

disturbed behavior ranging from

statue-like immobility to bursts

of energetic frantic movement and

talking.

positive symptoms

symptoms of schizophrenia that

are excesses of behavior or occur

in addition to normal behavior;

hallucinations, delusions, and

distorted thinking.

negative symptoms

symptoms of schizophrenia that

are less than normal behavior or an

absence of normal behavior; poor

attention, flat affect, and poor speech

production.