Schizophrenia is relatively similar to disorders like melancholia, mania, or generic which were discovered before the Middle Ages. This Greek word is broken down into two parts, “Schizo” meaning split and “Phrenia” that does not refer to multiple personalities but the mind’s split from reality.
Schizophrenia is defined as a severe brain disorder that affects how one thinks, feels and behaves. It can result in various combinations of delusion, hallucination, disorganized speech, lack of motivation and inappropriate emotional expression. Patients with schizophrenia could have either positive or negative symptoms.
For instance, positive symptoms mean that inappropriate behavior is present which could include hallucinations, talk in disorganized or they can experience inappropriate tears, rage, and laughter.
Where on the other you have negative symptoms which are the absence of appropriate behavior that included toneless voices, expressionless faces, or mute and rigid bodies. Hallucination effects people with schizophrenia in a way that they hear voices that gives them orders or lower their self-esteem by telling them that they are bad and that the only way to feel good is to do something harmful to self. According to schizophrenia.com, the word “schizophrenia” is less than 100 years old.
However, the disease was first identified as a discrete mental illness by Dr. Emile Kraepelin in 1887 and the illness itself is generally believed to have accompanied mankind through its history.” Before schizophrenia adopted its name, Dr. Kraepelin called the disease dementia praecox which was the premature stage of dementia. He called it dementia praecox because he wanted to focus his studies on young adults with dementia rather than older people.
Kraepelin wanted to prove that dementia praecox could lead to mental decline. Through his longitudinal observations trying to find a common pattern, he found that it resulted in severe cognitive and behavioral decline. Alongside Kraepelin, Eugen Bleuler founded the term schizophrenia in 1911.
