Summary of E. Fuller Torrey's Surviving Schizophrenia, 7th Edition

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Schizophrenia means fatigue and confusion, trying to separate every experience into the real and the unreal, and not being aware of where the edges overlap. It means trying to think straight when there are many obstacles in your way.
#2 Sympathy is the ability to put yourself in the place of someone else and understand their situation. It is difficult to sympathize with those who are afflicted with schizophrenia, as it is difficult to understand their situation and their disease process.
#3 When listening to people with schizophrenia describe their experiences, certain abnormalities can be noticed: altered senses, inability to sort and interpret incoming sensations, delusions and hallucinations, altered sense of self, changes in emotions, changes in movements, and changes in behavior.
#4 The senses are often altered in the early stages of breakdown in individuals with schizophrenia. These changes may be either enhancement or blunting, and all sensory modalities may be affected.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Psychopathology
• Schizophrenia
• Psychology
• Angst

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 05 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822500372
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on E. Fuller Torrey's Surviving Schizophrenia, 7th Edition
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Schizophrenia means fatigue and confusion, trying to separate every experience into the real and the unreal, and not being aware of where the edges overlap. It means trying to think straight when there are many obstacles in your way.

#2

Sympathy is the ability to put yourself in the place of someone else and understand their situation. It is difficult to sympathize with those who are afflicted with schizophrenia, as it is difficult to understand their situation and their disease process.

#3

When listening to people with schizophrenia describe their experiences, certain abnormalities can be noticed: altered senses, inability to sort and interpret incoming sensations, delusions and hallucinations, altered sense of self, changes in emotions, changes in movements, and changes in behavior.

#4

The senses are often altered in the early stages of breakdown in individuals with schizophrenia. These changes may be either enhancement or blunting, and all sensory modalities may be affected.

#5

Because of the overacuteness of the senses, it is often difficult for individuals with schizophrenia to concentrate or pay attention. They may experience a flood of sensory stimuli, which can be overwhelming.

#6

One aspect of the overacuteness of the senses in schizophrenia is a flooding of the mind with thoughts. It is as if the brain is being bombarded both with external stimuli and with internal stimuli as well.

#7

The overacuteness of the senses can be very frightening, and it is so described by most patients. The initial days of developing schizophrenia are often described as a heightened awareness, called peak experiences.

#8

Schizophrenia may affect the sense of pain. While it does not happen frequently, when it does, it may be dramatic and have practical consequences for those who are caring for the person.

#9

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that causes problems with sorting, interpreting, and responding to stimuli. It is believed that a fundamental defect in schizophrenia is a frequent inability to sort, interpret, and respond.

#10

Many people with schizophrenia have difficulties watching television or movies, because they cannot follow what is happening while they are listening to the screen at the same time. They may sit quietly in another corner of the room, ignoring the TV.

#11

The switchboard operator in our brain not only sorts and interprets the incoming stimuli, but also hooks them up with appropriate responses. The inability to interpret and respond appropriately is at the core of patients’ difficulties in relating to others.

#12

Schizophrenia is a disease that affects the brain, and its symptoms are thought patterns that are outside of the person’s control. When schizophrenia is described by a psychiatrist, such terms as disconnectedness, loosening of associations, and concreteness are used.

#13

Schizophrenics are not necessarily stupid. They can be very intelligent, but they may lose the ability to abstract and generalize. They may also have a tendency to concrete thinking, which can be tested by asking them to give the meaning of proverbs, which require an ability to abstract.

#14

Schizophrenia is a disease that affects the ability to think logically. It is not surprising that many patients have difficulty with daily activities, such as taking a bus, following directions, or planning meals.

#15

Schizophrenia is often diagnosed based on the symptoms of thinking disorders and blocking of thoughts. Other symptoms include thought withdrawal, which is when a person suddenly stops thinking and looks blank for a brief period.

#16

The ability to make a decision is often impaired in schizophrenia. For example, one of my patients frequently left the front door of the building, turned right, then stopped, took three steps back to the left and stopped, turning back and starting right.

#17

The symptoms of schizophrenia are delusions and hallucinations, and they are very common in this disease. However, they are not essential to its diagnosis. Many people with schizophrenia have other symptoms, such as a thought disorder, disturbances of affect, and disturbances of behavior.

#18

Delusions are the belief that random events around you are related to you in a direct way. If you are walking down the street and a man on the opposite sidewalk coughs, you don’t think anything of it, but the person with schizophrenia hears the cough and decides it is a signal directed at them.

#19

Delusions of being wired or radio-controlled are common in patients with schizophrenia. They are difficult to reason with, and the person may not be logical or connected.

#20

Paranoia is when a person is being watched, persecuted, or attacked, and their paranoid thoughts are not affected by reason. It is common among groups that do not trust the government.

#21

There is a particular type of grandiose delusion that is so distinctive that it has its own name: de Clerambault syndrome, or erotomania. It is the belief that another person, usually famous, is deeply in love with the patient.

#22

Delusions are very common in schizophrenia, and they are the end of the spectrum that begins with overacuteness of the senses. They are not, however, always pathological.

#23

Hallucinations are when a person sees, hears, or feels something that wasn’t there before. They may be a simple swishing or thumping sound, such as the beating of the heart in Poe’s famous short story, or they may be multiple voices or a choir.

#24

The voices of patients with auditory hallucinations are usually unpleasant and accusatory. They are often cursing the victims for past misdeeds, and many patients react to them by ignoring them or fighting back.

#25

Hallucinations are common in schizophrenia, and they typically take the form of visual flashes of light or hallucinatory words or symbols on blank surfaces. They are often accompanied by auditory hallucinations.

#26

The sense of self is often altered in schizophrenia. Some patients may even be unable to recognize photographs of themselves. The body parts of patients with schizophrenia may develop lives of their own, as if they have become disassociated and detached.

#27

The altered sense of self may be further aggravated if hallucinations of touch or delusions about the body are present. One possible example of this is Kafka’s famous story The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor wakes up and realizes that he has been transformed into a huge beetle.

#28

Schizophrenia is characterized by changes in emotions, which may be exaggerated and rapidly fluctuating. Depression, guilt, fear, and rapidly fluctuating emotions are common symptoms early in the course of the disease.

#29

Schizophrenia is characterized by exaggerated emotions, as well as difficulties in assessing emotions in others. The most characteristic changes in emotions in schizophrenia are inappropriate emotions or flattened emotions.

#30

The advanced stage of flattening of the emotions is when there are none left at all. It is an unforgettable experience for those who interact with the victims, as they seem to be robots with no emotions.

#31

The drugs used to treat schizophrenia do have a calming or sedative effect, but most of the flattening of emotions and weakening of motivation is due to the disease itself.

#32

Side effects of the antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia can cause changes in movements, ranging from a fine tremor of the fingers to gross jerky movements of the arms or trunk.

#33

Schizophrenia is a disease that changes behavior. It is common for people with this illness to withdraw and remain silent, as they become lost in deep thought or to slow down the incoming sensory stimuli so the brain can sort them out.

#34

The behavior of patients with schizophrenia is internally logical and rational, but it may appear irrational to the outside observer. To the patient, however, there is nothing crazy or mad about it at all.

#35

The behavior of individuals with schizophrenia is often bizarre, and it is often caused by their disordered thinking processes. However, some of it may be caused by disease-related physiological brain changes.

#36

Schizophrenia is a disease of the brain, and as such, some people with it are aware of the malfunctioning of their brain. They may even tell those around them in the early stages of illness that something is wrong with their head.

#37

The brain areas that are affected by decreased awareness of illness in individuals with schizophrenia are the medial frontal lobe, including the anterior cingulate, and the inferior parietal lobule, especially on the right side.

#38

Schizophrenia is a disorder of the brain, and it can be difficult for families and friends of people with this disease to understand what they are going through. They may experience the alterations of the senses, delusions, and hallucinations, and changes in bodily boundaries, emotions, and movements.

#39

Schizophrenia is a disease in which the brain, the essence of who you are, plays tricks on you. It is a disorder in which the person affected is heroic in their attempts to keep a mental equilibrium, despite the disordered brain function.

#40

The experience of psychopathology is the subject of many books. The inner world of mental illness is explored in det