Mental Illnesses Has Been Recorded Since The Beginning Of...

Introduction Mental illnesses has been recorded since the beginning of history. Mental illness is a condition that impairs a person’s thoughts, actions, mood and social skills. Daily activity becomes a difficult task to those with a disorder. Every person reacts differently to diagnosed mental conditions. (NAMI, 2015) Mental disorders include a wide range of problems made up of anxiety, mood disorders, depression, schizophrenia, psychotic disorders and etc. The focus of this paper will examine the disorder of schizophrenia; how it became, who is affects and to live with it. Schizophrenia is a severe brain disorder that affects one’s perception of reality. It may cause hallucinations, delusions, psychotic episodes, disorganized speech,†¦show more content†¦Schizophrenia may prevail at any age, usually during adolescence into young adulthood. In order to correctly diagnose a person with schizophrenia, the patient must have two of the symptoms mentioned above for more than one month. Dr. Emile Kraepelin gets credit for classifying mental disorders. He called schizophrenia early dementia: â€Å"dementia praecox.† He believed it to be a form of Alzheimers that prevails in adolescence. It had very similar symptoms to the elderly suffering from Dementia and Alzheimers. He even took it a step further and broke the disorder into three groups: disorganized, catatonic and paranoia. The term ‘Schizophrenia’ was coined in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist, Eugen Bleuler. He disagreed with Kraepelin. He found that symptoms appear later in life as well and they differ from those of dementia. He then gave the illness a different name. Schizophrenia translates to split mind because he believed that people were battling with reality and their minds. As schizophrenia continues to be researched, scientists try to define it better. They always go back to Kraepelin and Bleuler. Over the last 100 years only two more subdivisions were added to the definition; totaling five in all: Disorganized, catatonic, paranoid, residual and undifferentiated. Background and Early Explanations Mental illness has been around since the beginning of recorded history. Mental illness was not recognized and those suffering were labeled as retarded. â€Å"Terms