Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis that impacts upon and distorts all five senses of a person. The patient is said to experience “auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction.” (Wikipedia)
People with schizophrenia may have perceptions of reality that are strikingly different from the reality seen and shared by others around them. Living in a world distorted by hallucinations and delusions, individuals with schizophrenia may feel frightened, anxious, and confused. (schizophrenia.com)
Many scientists believe that schizophrenia is an inherited disorder, a biological predisposition. Studies have shown that people in a family with a history of mental illness are more likely to develop the disease.
However, recent research is trying to prove that the genes containing the disorder are not dangerous unless triggered by an environmental factor. In Finland, a study on adopted children obtaining schizophrenia was conducted. Children that had a high genetic rate and were adopted into an abusive, dysfunctional family had an 87% higher rate than a similar child brought up in a loving, non-abusive setting. (http://www.schizophrenia.com/hypo.php) Other factors can include stress during pregnancy, social or family distress and unusual environmental circumstance causing anxiety.
From this information and any further information, answer the questions below.
1. Do you believe that schizophrenia’s origin is from Nature or Nurture?
2. What experiment or study would you conduct on this topic?
3. What other environmental factors do you think would have the biggest impact on the rate of schizophrenia?
Anna, 10M
Schizophrenia is another of those disorders that cannot be classed into either nature or nurture, as both play a significant role in it's development. On one hand, a person with genetics that show a high rate of likelihood of schizophrenia will be likely to contract the disease. However, if there is never a trigger for the disease to develop, those schizophrenic-prone genes may just lie dormant and never develop. It all depends on what type of lifestyle they have. If they're stuck in a high-intensity whirlpool of agression and noise, and they have schizophrenic prone genes, they may well contract the disease. But if they're in a loving, calm environment, they may never get it.
ReplyDeleteThat Finnish study was extremely conclusive, in terms of studies of schizophrenia, that would probably be my pick, or something replicable to that. Environmental factors on schizophrenia would change from person to person, depending n their phobias, likes, etc. There wouldn't be a generic 'formula' for schizophrenic-prone people.
As for the debate, it's hard to place schizophrenia in one basket, it's probably result of both.
fraser 10N
In my opinion I believe that schizophrenia is a a combination of both nature and nurture. The causes of schizophrenia are not fully understood. They are likely to be a combination of hereditary and other factors. It is probable that some people are born with this disease, and that certain things — for example, stress or use of drugs can trigger their first episode. If a person is in a very stressful situation and it is in their biological makeup an evidnent that causes them major discomfort will trigger the disease. Therefore both nature and nurture has an influence.
ReplyDeleteShannon :)
From this information and any further information, answer the questions below.
ReplyDelete1. Do you believe that schizophrenia’s origin is from Nature or Nurture?
It is my opinion that schizophrenia originates in Nature, but will only be triggered by external factors. Therefore for all intents and purposes; schizophrenia is Nurture.
2. What experiment or study would you conduct on this topic?
A case study of twins (to lessen the genetic differences) both diagnosed with the same level of schizophrenia, separated at birth and one raised in an abusive family, one raised in a loving family, and after a few years the severity of schizophrenia and frequency of incidences are recorded. This would, of course, be horribly unethical, and should never be tested.
3. What other environmental factors do you think would have the biggest impact on the rate of schizophrenia?
The patients attitude towards schizophrenia would have a big effect, considering schizophrenia is a conscious phenomenon. The attitude of whoever the patient interacts with on a daily basis would also have an effect on the schizophrenia via my first point. Obviously the number and frequency of triggers would also build up schizophrenia, which would have a debilitating effect rather than building up a resistance.
Similar to bipolar disorder, I believe schizophrenia is a result of both nature and nurture. Genetic inheritance of mental illnesses and then the trigger of an aggressive environment could be influential enough to cause schizophrenia.
ReplyDeleteSchizophrenia could be obtained by simply hereditary details or from just an unsafe environment or experience. However, it is more likely that a combination of the two will cause schizophrenia to uprise even if these factors are unconsciously effective. For instance, there could be a distant and unknown gene of mental illness from an older generation but was never discovered until a distressing event happened to an individual such as pregnancy, or having an abusive family member. This event and the combination of the distant gene of mental illness could be enough to trigger schizophrenia in a victim.
It would be very hard to conduct an illegible experiment on the topic of schizophrenia. There would be many uncontrollable variables. However, in order to do so, you would need to find out the participants history of mental illness from very far back. You would also need to include extremely personal information about how the participant’s lifestyle could be affecting schizophrenia. There may also be unknown factors of genes which contain mental illnesses that have simply never been revealed before. Therefore to conduct an experiment on schizophrenia would be very hard.
Environmental factors have a very large influence over everyone; how they act, who they see and what they do. Schizophrenia is caused because of distress. Therefore the greatest factors that could bring out schizophrenia in a person would be the ones that cause the most stress. These could include a breakup, parent’s divorce or new partner and the death of a loved one. However, different things affect everyone in unique ways. Therefore, in order to try and keep schizophrenia-free it is important to remember to occasionally relax and de-stress.
Danika