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What’s the difference between negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
Question : What’s the difference between negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
i read this about schizophrenia… could someone explain it
Schizophrenia is often described in terms of positive and negative (or deficit) symptoms.[16] The term positive symptoms refers to symptoms that most individuals do not normally experience but are present in schizophrenia. They include delusions, auditory hallucinations, and thought disorder, and are typically regarded as manifestations of psychosis. Negative symptoms are things that are not present in schizophrenic persons but are normally found in healthy persons, that is, symptoms that reflect the loss or absence of normal traits or abilities. Common negative symptoms include flat or blunted affect and emotion, poverty of speech (alogia), inability to experience pleasure (anhedonia), lack of desire to form relationships (asociality), and lack of motivation (avolition). Research suggests that negative symptoms contribute more to poor quality of life, functional disability, and the burden on others than do positive symptoms.[17]
schizophrenia symptoms
Best answer:
Answer by angsty
i dont know but i wanna tell u that i know someone who is schizo and he cant speak clearly and when he wants to make conversation, he has to put so much effort into it that his hands shake a little—also, he plays the guitar but he cant really master it no matter how much he plays n practices but he plays okay though. oh! and he has a real hard time understanding deep or serious conversations– he loses focus really fast, he cant even seat and watch tv, he gets too anxious or inpatient. and lastly, he cant work! he cant handle the pressure of working, not even bagging groceries.
Yes, there is a difference between positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia.
People most commonly get confused because they think of a different definition for these terms. Positive=good. Negative=bad. That isn’t how it works in schizophrenia. Think of it like money. Positive=you have something. Negative=you don’t have something.
So, using that definition, positive symptoms are things that schizophrenics experience that mentally healthy people do not. It is considered positive because they have something that other people do not. Like what you read said, what they have that others don’t is hallucinations, delusions, and thought disorders. If you took a test that determined whether or not you hallucinate (there isn’t actually a test that does this), a person that hallucinates would test “positive.”
Negative symptoms are things that schizophrenics do not have that mentally healthy people do have. Like having a negative bank account…you don’t have money but other people do. So, mentally healthy people show emotions on their face that are appropriate to the situation. They have a tone of voice that matches emotions. Schizophrenics can lack these expressions or tones of voice…therefore they have a flat or blunted affect. That lack of emotion and tone is negative because it isn’t there. Same goes for the rest of the symptoms. A mentally healthy person is usually capable of speaking (not including mute people obviously). A schizophrenic person may sometimes be unable to speak. Negative because the ability to speak does not exist.
As for the last sentence of what you read, research does show that people who experience a lot of negative symptoms function worse than those who experience mainly positive symptoms. This is because, if you cannot speak or cannot motivate yourself or cannot experience pleasure…you are highly unlikely to be able to hold a job, have lasting relationships, or just socialize with people. The lack of motivation can become so severe that some schizophrenics do not practice normal hygiene routines because they cannot motivate themselves to do so. Or they can’t motivate themselves to clean a house or cook meals. This leads to poor quality of life. A high amount of negative symptoms also leads to a higher chance of suicide attempts. If nothing you do brings you pleasure, not even old favorite hobbies…life begins to seem pretty meaningless.
Another really basic difference between positive and negative symptoms is that positive symptoms signal psychosis. Negative symptoms do not.