Lexic.us

Definition of Schizophrenia

1. Noun. Any of several psychotic disorders characterized by distortions of reality and disturbances of thought and language and withdrawal from social contact.

Definition of Schizophrenia

1. Noun. (pathology) A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion. ¹

2. Noun. (informal) Any condition in which disparate or mutually exclusive activities coexist. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Schizophrenia

1. [n -S]

Medical Definition of Schizophrenia

1. A mental disorder or heterogeneous group of disorders (the schizophrenias or schizophrenic disorders) comprising most major psychotic disorders and characterised by disturbances in form and content of thought (loosening of associations, delusions and hallucinations) mood (blunted, flattened or inappropriate affect), sense of self and relationship to the external world (loss of ego boundaries, dereistic thinking and autistic withdrawal) and behaviour (bizarre, apparently purposeless and stereotyped activity or inactivity). The definition and clinical application of the concept of the concept of schizophrenia have varied greatly. The DSM III R criteria emphasise marked disorder of thought (delusions, hallucinations or other thought disorder accompanied by disordered affect or behaviour), deterioration from a previous level of functioning and chronicity (duration of more than 6 months), thus excluding from this classification conditions referred to by others as acute, borderline, simple or latent schizophrenia. Originally called dementia praecox and characterised as a psychosis with adolescent onset and a chronic course ending in deterioration. The term schizophrenia was introduced by Bleuler because neither early onset nor terminal deterioration is an essential feature, he emphasised the splitting and lack of personality integration seen in the disorder. Origin: Gr. Phren = mind This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology (11 Mar 2008)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Schizophrenia

Literary usage of Schizophrenia

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Diseases of the nervous system by Smith Ely Jelliffe, William Alanson White (1917)
"DEMENTIA PRECOX (Schizophrenia) GROUP. THE term dementia precox has been the occasion ... To meet this demand Bleuler has suggested the name schizophrenia, ..."

2. Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series (1913)
"... discusses "schizophrenia," a term under which he includes practically ... is given by Trenel.9 By schizophrenia he means a group of psychoses developing ..."

3. Value of Psychiatric Treatment: Its Efficacy in Severe Mental Disorders edited by Samuel J. Keith (1996)
"Family psychoeducation, social skills training, and maintenance chemotherapy in the aftercare treatment of schizophrenia. I. One-year effects of a ..."

4. Assessment and Treatment of Patients With Coexisting Mental Illness and by Richard Ries (1996)
"Prevalence Various studies have noted that the lifetime prevalence rate for schizophrenia is roughly 1 percent among the general population (Africa and ..."

5. Mental Health, United States, 1998 edited by Ronald W Manderscheid, Marilyn J Henderson (1999)
"Recent symptoms of schizophrenia were assessed hi a battery of 11 questions that were selected from the University of Arkansas Schizophrenia Outcomes Module ..."

6. Handbook of Severe Disability: A Text for Rehabilitation Counselors, Other edited by Walter C. Stolov, Michael R. Clowers (2000)
"The most frequent age of onset of overt schizophrenia is adolescence and early ... In schizophrenia, both thinking and speech may be in the form of "free ..."

7. The Neuroscience of Mental Health: A Report on Neuroscience Research edited by Stephen H. Koslow (1997)
"Major Psychiatric Disorders Schizophrenia For most of this century, schizophrenia has been considered one of the most intractable of the mental disorders ..."

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