Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is the name for a number of mental illnesses. People with Schizophrenia have a different idea of what is real and what is not. This can cause problems with behaviour, thinking, emotions and motivation. There are different forms of Schizophrenia. Most of them are linked to psychosis. People with schizophrenia are often thought to have 'lost touch with reality'.
Psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin was the first person to separate schizophrenia from other types of mental illness. He called it 'dementia praecox', and it was later renamed 'schizophrenia'.

three diagnostic criteria must be met:
Characteristic symptoms:
-Delusions
-Hallucinations
-Grossly disorganized behavior just like, dressing inappropriately, crying frequently or catatonic behavior
-Negative symptoms—affective flattening, or lack or decline in emotional response, lack or decline in speech, or lack or decline in motivation
If the delusions are judged to be bizarre, or hallucinations consist of hearing one voice participating in a running commentary of the patient's actions or of hearing two or more voices conversing with each other, only that symptom is required above. The speech disorganization criterion is only met if it is severe enough to substantially impair communication.

-Social/occupational dysfunction: For a significant portion of the time since the onset of the disturbance, one or more major areas of functioning such as work, interpersonal relations, or self-care, are markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset.
Duration: Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least six months. This six-month period must include at least one month of symptoms (or less, if symptoms remitted with treatment).

There are drugs that can be given to treat schizophrenia. These drugs cannot cure schizophrenia, but they can control the symptoms. Drugs called anti-psychotics are good for the positive symptoms, but do not seem to help the negative symptoms go away. In fact, some of the drugs for the positive symptoms may make the negative symptoms worse.

Many people with schizophrenia can live good lives. Taking medicine is important to prevent relapses (symptoms coming back). The majority of people recover fully or learn to live a normal life. A small number of people who have schizophrenia will never fully recover

St. Elizabeth's Hospital. Wall of room in Ward Retreat 1. Reproductions made by a patient, a disturbed case of dementia praecox. Pin or fingernail used to scratch paint from wall, top coat of paint buff color, superimposed upon a brick red coat of paint. Pictures symbolize events in patient's past life and represent a mild state of mental regression. Undated, but likely early 20th century.

Louis Wain was an English artist best known for his drawings, anthropomorphised large-eyed cats and kittens. In his later years he suffered from schizophrenia, which according to some psychologist, can be seen in his work

H. G Wells said of him, "He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves."

click this to see his drawings