Schizophrenia is the most common psychoses in the United States affecting around one percent of the United States population. It is characterized by a deep withdrawal from interpersonal relationships and a retreat into a world of fantasy. This plunge into fantasy results in a loss of contact from reality that can vary from mild to severe. Psychosis has more than one acceptable definition. The psychoses are different from other groups of psychiatric disorders in their degree of severity, withdrawal, alteration in affect, impairment of intellect, and regression. The severity of psychoses are considered major disorders and involve confusion in all portions of a person’s life. Psychosis is seen in a wide range of organic disorders and schizophrenia. These disorders are severe, intense, and disruptive. A person with a psychotic disorder suffers greatly, as do those in his or her immediate environment. Individuals suffering from withdrawal are said to be autistic. That is, the person withdraws from reality into a private world of his or her own. The psychotic individual is more withdrawn than a person with a neurotic disorder or any other mental disorder. The affect, mood, or emotional tone in a person with a psychotic disorder is immensely different from that of normal affect. In the mood disorders, one observes the exaggeration of sadness and cheerfulness in the form of depression and mania. In the schizophrenic disorders, affect may be exaggerated, flat, or inappropriate. In psychotic disorders, the intellect is involved in the actual psychotic process, resulting in derangement of language, thought, and judgment. Schizophrenia is called a formal thought disorder. Thinking and understanding of reality are usually severely impaired. The most severe and prolonged regressions are seen in the psychoses, regression. There is a falling back to earlier behavioral levels. In schizophrenia this may include returning to primitive forms of beh...
