What are the positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia?

This symptomatology does not refer to the symptoms that improve or worsen a person with this condition. What does it mean then?

Schizophrenia contains within its presentation of symptoms some that are called positive or psychotic and others negative. Of the The first group includes hallucinations, delusions and disorganized behaviors.while emotional poverty, alogia, abulia, anhedonia and unsociability make up the second group.

What does this mean?

  1. The hallucinations They are deceptions of the senses or internal perceptions that occur without an external stimulus, that is, people see, hear, feel things that are not in reality, but for themwho experience this disorder, Yes they are.
  2. The delusions They are also deceptions, but this time of thought. People who are delusional have the conviction that something is happening, that what they think is the only valid reality and they act accordingly.. Let’s keep in mind that these scenarios or stories they create are NOT happening in reality, for example, In the delusion of persecution, one firmly thinks that someone is persecuting them or even that they want to harm them; However, the truth is that no one is after them.
  3. Disorganized behaviors can be seen as a difficulty in speech because it generates a repetition of words or phrases, incoherent or incomprehensible ideas, restlessness, aggressiveness without reason and catatoniawhich is the term used to refer to absolute immobility with the presence of muscle rigidity.

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  1. Affective poverty: loss of the ability to feel or experience emotionsis usually accompanied by a flat facial expression, poor eye contact, and affective incongruity, for example, smiling on serious topics.
  2. Alogia: loss or diminution of verbal expression, i.e. speech is reduced.
  3. Abulia: loss of motivation accompanied by lack of energy to carry out daily activities.
  4. Anhedonia: loss of experiencing satisfaction or interest in daily activities.
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Usually the positive or psychotic symptoms are the most evident in this disorder; However, there are cases where negative symptoms occur first that could be confused with sadness or depressive symptoms.

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