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Courtney Bostic
Professor DAlessio
UWRT-1102-006
March 21, 2016
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is something that many people have heard of, but not many actually know
what it is. Before I did research all I knew was that the people with this disorder were impaired
from reality and I thought of them as crazy. I hate theat word crazy and its hard for me to
believe that I considered people with this disorder that, but I did and I know I am not the only
one that felt that way. After doing much research I have coame to the conclusion that
Schizophrenia is a serious disorder that impairs people from doing everyday activities. I never
knew how severe this disease actually was until I sat down to learn more about it. There are so
many more aspects that go into this disorder than I could have imagined, and there are many
more symptoms than just them losing touch with reality.
Schizophrenia has been around for many years, but was first discovered by Dr. Kraepelin
in 1887. Before the term Schizophrenia was formed the main word for this unknown disease was
usually called madness. Since the 17th century people have suffered from this terrible disease
and were unsure what the main problem or cause for it really was. All the people knew about
madness was that the person having an episode would hear voices or just behave erratically. In
the 1800s, before the appropriate medicine, people with Schizophrenia were confined to
asylums or in their home. However, in the mid 1900s Germany established a law where people
with Schizophrenia were sometimes killed by lethal injections or gas chambers. Today, this
would not be acceptable and in my opinion is considered immoral. Then later on in the 1950s

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antipsychotic medications were founded such as Chlorpromazine, Haloperidol, and Flupenthixol.

These medications proved to positively affect the patients in a way that they had never done
before. Later on doctors found that even though the drugs were effective, cognitive behavioral
therapy became another main treatment for people suffering from this disorder. Today, the main
treatment for people suffering with Schizophrenia is medications, therapy with a psychiatrist or
therapist, and if severe enough they will be admitted into a hospital or an in care facility.
Treatment for Schizophrenia has really advanced through the years, but there is still much more
society could do to help. One of the main issues is how society deals with people who suffer
from this and how we react with the situation or even the individual with this disorder.
Schizophrenia is a term that has been formed into a category of a specific disorder
through time. The symptoms for this disorder typically appear between the ages sixteen and
thirty, however, in rare cases symptoms can be seen with children. Schizophrenia is formed
either through a chemical imbalance, environment exposure before birth, genetics, or it can be
created during the development of the brain. What I have learned through my research is that
there are two types of symptoms for schizophrenia. The first is Positive symptoms which is when
the person experiences hallucinations, delusions, erratic ways of thinking, and even agitated
movements. The other symptoms that can be seen are negative symptoms. These symptoms are
when someone has little expressions or emotions, less motivation with life, and lose
communication skills. Overall, what I have gathered from my research on Schizophrenia is that
there is no one thing that causes this disease. Schizophrenia can be caused due to many reasons
that generally occur before birth. I also now understand that the symptoms for this disorder all
involve someone's behavior or personality being different than what is considered to be

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normal. What I was left with after understanding all this information was, can any of this be
prevented? Or better yet, can schizophrenia itself be prevented?
After asking myself this question and then researching it, I found that the answer was not
what I assumed. The only way to prevent Schizophrenia is preventing the environment exposure,
but majority of the causes of Schizophrenia are due to prenatal exposure. So then I asked myself,
what else can be done to prevent Schizophrenia? The answer is nothing. I realized that even
though this disease is a major problem that individuals have struggled with for years, its also a
problem that society has struggled with. Not only is this disease hard enough on the person
suffering from it, but the way society handles and responds to the people with this disease is an
occurring problem as well. Since there is no real way to prevent this disease, Schizophrenia is
going to be around for a long time. Which leads me to conclude that if the people tormented by
this disease have to find a way to live with it, so does society. However, why is it that people,
including myself, have always had a negative preconceived notion about people with disease?
For me personally, I have always found myself to be scared of people with this disorder. Not that
I actually have a reason to, but almost because it was the way I was raised. When I say raised I
dont mean by my family, what I mean is raised by society. Growing up I feel like I was
swayed to believe and perceive Schizophrenia as something scary and terrifying because of
movies I had watched, books I had read, or even just what I heard or watched on T.V. about
everyday life. To me, this is where the problem about the misrepresentation of Schizophrenia
begins.
In 2010 a suspenseful thriller movie called Shutter Island was released into movie
theaters. I had seen the trailer for this movie and it honestly creeped me out, but I was a fan of
horror or scary movies so I couldnt miss it. If you dont already know, Shutter Island is about a

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U.S Marshall that investigates the disappearance of a patient who escaped from a hospital for
criminally insane people. This movie leads the audience to believe that the U.S Marshall, Teddy
Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), is a sane man searching for a missing patient. Although, in the end
the audience comes to the realization that the criminally insane patient Teddy Daniels is
searching for himself. Teddy Daniels the U.S Marshall is actually a patient at the asylum
named Andrew Laeddis who suffers from Schizophrenia. The whole movie was based off of
Andrew Laeddis being in his false reality, which makes many people think that everyone who
suffers from Schizophrenia is crazy. Even though I personally enjoyed the movie, the whole
storyline is what I find misrepresentingmisinterpreting the actual disease itself. Although,
Schizophrenia can be a severe disorder, like how it was represented in the movie, not all cases
are that bad. Also, the fact that the movie was under the category of thriller and horror is another
reason behind society being scared of individuals with this disorder. Our society has set up a
role for how people with this disorder should act and in my opinion its wrong. Although I am
sure society enjoyed this great movie, I can almost be certain that people who personally suffer
from Schizophrenia found it insulting. Books as well as movies can also impact the way we view
Schizophrenia.
When I was a freshman in highschool I read the book The Shining by Stephen King. The
Shining is a creepy suspicious novel that is about a man who suffers from Schizophrenia and
alcoholism and he starts seeing things and going delusional. Jack is the character with
Schizophrenia and a father to Danny and is married to his wife Wendy.the father of his son,
Danny and the husband of his wife Wendy. Jack has a violent history with breaking his son's
arm, beating up one of his students from his previous job before working at his new job, the
hotel, and then trying to kill his family because he felt like they were out to get him. This book is

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known as one of the creepiest and scariest horror books to have ever been written. Honestly,
when I read the book I found it to be very frightening and almost shocking to grasp onto because
it was so terrifying. Although, now that I look back I can see that this book also misinterprets
Schizophrenia as individuals who are violent and want to kill people because thats how Jack's
character was portrayed. I feel like society has a hard time viewing people with Schizophrenia as
friendly and nice because there have been so many books and movies that represent them
otherwise. It is a fact that not all people who suffer from Schizophrenia are dangerous criminals
who are violent and crazy. However, that is how our society has perceived them and I feel like
there could be room for a change in that area. Not only does this exist within film and literature,
but it is also present in everyday life.
(growing up i watched?)I grew up watching or reading the news everyday because thats
what my parents taught me to do, so I thought when doing my research, has Schizophrenia ever
been misrepresented on the news since it is definitely misrepresented by society? The answer is
yes it has been, probably multiple times, but I did some research to find a specific news video. I
found an ABC News video of a cop shooting a man who suffered from Schizophrenia. After
watching the video multiple times and listening to his parents speaking it is clear that the
newscast pointed the finger towards the cops when publicly speaking during the video. John, the
man that was killed, suffered from Schizophrenia and his mother called 911 to have a medical
examination after she believed John was behaving strangely. She had no intentions of her son
losing his life that day or even calling to arrest him. This news video makes it clear to me that the
cops and even Johns own parents dont fully understand how to deal with people with this
disorder We agonize because we try to understand and theres no possible way to understand
what happened, said by Susan Barry, Johns mother. This video really interested me because

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although John had Schizophrenia and he might havehad been acting erratically, I still think there
was other ways to go about this situation. Cops jobs are to protect our society, so I think they
chose to shoot John because they believed he was endangering his family and community., but
mMaybe John had no clue he was acting that way or maybe the cops could have approached him
differently due to his illness that they were aware of before approaching the scene. It all comes
down to how society, meaning everyone involved with the people with this disorder, respond
and act towards Schizophrenia alone and the people who suffer from this illness. Yes, sometimes
people with Schizophrenia can be dangerous, but thats not always the case and once society
understands that, the more comfortable Schizophrenic people will be. This will also make it
easier for society to react to Schizophrenia itself and the people that have it.
An important part about Schizophrenia is the voices they hear in their head and the
negative aspects it has on the individual's hearing them. That is when I decided to really try and
understand what kind of voices people suffering from this illness actually hear and thats when I
came across a certain research study. A Stanford research study was done to fully understand
what kind of voices Schizophrenia people hear and how they are different depending on the
person and cultural they come from. The research studied 60 adults diagnosed with
Schizophrenia, 20 each being from California, Ghana, and India. There were 31 women and 29
men around the age 34. They were all asked questions like what kinds of voices they heard?
How often these voices occurred? Whether they had conversations with the voices? Who was
speaking to them? And whether there was any positive voices that reached out to them? One of
the most interesting findings through this research is that many of the African and Indian people
heard positive voices in their heads while the Americans in the study only heard negative voices.
One of the Americans quoted the voices are like the warfare of everyone just yelling. While the

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Indian participants heard voices from their family or kKin members telling them to do things.
The Indians also showed to hear more positive voices such as they described as playful and even
magical. Majority of the Ghana adults heard good voices and 16 of them reported hearing God
like voices in their heads. What the study concluded is that different cultures can have an effect
on illness such as Schizophrenia. I findfound it interesting that people with schizophrenia heard
positive voices in their heads. I had no idea that even existed. I always thought Schizophrenia
had a negative impact on someone's life because it impaired them from doing everyday activities.
However, after seeing this study it is clear to me that cultural background can make a huge
difference on how people perceive themselves. This study proved that Schizophrenia does not
always have to be looked at as bad or life threatening because the Indian and Ghana people heard
good things unlike the Americans.
Overall, after taking the time to fully comprehend the meaning of the disorder
schizophrenia, I can now see why I was raised to be afraid of it and the people that have it.
However, after doing research and analyzing movies and books I have seen and read I know that
not everyone with this disease is harmful. Individuals with Schizophrenia are just looking for
people to understand what they are going through, just like any other disease out there. Society
puts a misguided view on Schizophrenia in a way that makes society fear it in ways
unimaginable, but I think there is still more to life and time for us to grow. Society can change
the way people view this disorder into a more positive way instead of the way we see it now.
Society has set a false interpretation of Schizophrenia on to everyone, which has set a block and
restriction on to the people who actually suffer from the illness. In my opinion, people who
actually take the time like I did to completely understand the whole disorder itself will have a
different outlook without even knowing it.

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Citations

http://www.livingwithschizophreniauk.org/advice-sheets/schizophrenia-a-briefhistory/
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/index.shtml
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/july/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614.html

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