People who suffer from schizophrenia experience common psychoses such as severe distortion of thought, bizarre behaviour and social withdrawal. There are five characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia – delusions (firmly held beliefs that have no basis in reality – people are spying on them, they are being controlled by others, people on t.v. are addressing them, they are a famous, powerful person, they have committed some sort of crime, they are suffering from a disease, and they no longer exist), hallucinations (the perception of things that are not there – such as sounds or objects), disorganized speech ( their sentences are just a jumble of unrelated words, contain words that are made up, may rhyme a lot or are just random thoughts), disorganized or catatonic behaviour ( showing no emotion, showing inappropriate reactions to stimulus, and abnormal inappropriate motor behaviour – running around or standing completely still for hours), and negative symptoms such as a reduction in or loss of normal languages and other functions.
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