The 6 types of schizophrenia (and associated characteristics)

Schizophrenia is a group of psychiatric disorders serious that, contrary to what many people believe, do not have to resemble each other.

The types of schizophrenia are what have long served to determine the mental health of patients with symptomsAlthough knowing how to recognize and distinguish them is not easy.

In addition, the debate about whether it is more necessary to differentiate between types of schizophrenia or on the contrary, it is necessary to address the phenomenon of Schizophrenia globally has raised doubts about the appropriateness of using different subtypes based on diagnostic criteria separated.

Subtypes of schizophrenia or just schizophrenia?

From the discussion about whether to consider types of schizophrenia or to talk about schizophrenia in general has had an important consequence: recently, the manual DSM-V diagnosis has stopped differentiating according to subtypes of schizophrenia, although that does not mean that this decision has received good levels of acceptance by psychiatrists in general.

Summarizing, it is not at all clear whether or not to distinguish between types of schizophrenia, but many specialists in the medical field continue to do so. Depending on the categorization of the symptoms and the emphasis placed on the variations and different forms in which schizophrenia can appear, a single concept to explain all cases of this disease or different labels will be used to specify more: there is no objective criterion that allows to solve this question.

As knowledge is power, here you can find a description of the characteristics of the types of schizophrenia that have been excluded from the DSM in recent years.

1. Catatonic schizophrenia

This type of schizophrenia is characterized by severe psychomotor disorders that the patient presents. These pathological alterations are not always the same, although the main ones are immobility and waxy stiffness, in which the person maintains the muscles tense so that it looks like a wax figure (hence the name of the symptom), the inability to speak and the adoption of strange postures while standing or in the I usually.

During the phases in which catatonia occurs, alterations in consciousness and other alterations such as mutism, stupor and fixed gaze, alternating these negative symptoms with others such as agitation. However, it must be taken into account that there can be a lot of variability in the way in which catatonic schizophrenia presents, and most patients do not present all the symptoms associated with this at the same time.

Finally, it is necessary to point out that in addition to the discussion about whether there are types of schizophrenia or a single clinical entity that is expressed in different ways, there is a debate about whether catatonia is in fact one of the manifestations of schizophrenia or whether it is another phenomenon Independent.

2. Paranoid schizophrenia

One of the best known types of schizophrenia, in this case symptoms tend to be more psychic than motor; in fact, people with this kind of schizophrenia do not have motor or speech impairments. Among these signs of alteration in psychic functions is the persecution mania, that is, the belief that other people have want to hurt us in the present or in the future.

It is also common for this type of schizophrenia to auditory hallucinations and delusions (In the latter, strange elements are not perceived through the senses, but thought is so altered that strange narratives are constructed about reality).

The delusions of grandeur, classics of megalomaniacs, can also make their appearance here.

3. Simple schizophrenia

This has been a category to designate a possible type of schizophrenia in which there are not as many positive symptoms (that is, those that define the proactive behavior and initiatives of the person) and yes negative symptoms (that is, characterized by the absence of basic psychological processes and with the lack of will and motivation). In other words, this type of schizophrenia is characterized by mental processes that are diminished, and not so much by unusual excesses of mental activity.

People with this type of schizophrenia showed many forms of inhibition, affective flattening, little verbal and non-verbal communication, etc.

Unlike the rest of the types of schizophrenia that we will see here, this one did not appear in the DSM-IV, but has been a category proposed by WHO.

4. Residual schizophrenia

This category was used as a type of schizophrenia that occurs when there has been an outbreak of schizophrenia in the past But at present the positive symptoms are very moderate and of low intensity, while what is most striking are the "remnants" of negative symptoms that remain. Therefore, to understand this type of schizophrenia, it is very important to take into account the time factor and make comparisons between before and after.

5. Disorganized or hebephrenic schizophrenia

In this type of schizophrenia, more than there are behaviors that in themselves are a sign of pathology (such as the adoption of a totally rigid posture), the disease is expressed through the way in which the actions of the person are organized and follow one another. That is, its main characteristic is the messy mode in which the actions appear, compared to the rest.

His behavior is chaotic and is not organized around themes that are maintained over time, that is, he does not builds a more or less coherent narrative that gives rise to persecution mania or hallucinations that one has, for example. The person shows disorganization in his emotional states, in what he says and / or in his way of moving.

6. Undifferentiated schizophrenia

This is a "mixed bag" category to be able to classify those cases that do not fit the diagnostic criteria. of the rest of the types of schizophrenia. Therefore, it cannot be considered a consistent type of schizophrenia.

Bibliographic references:

• Fink, M., Shorter, E., and Taylor, M. to. (2011). Catatonia is not schizophrenia: Kraepelin’s error and the need to recognize catatonia as an independent syndrome in medical nomenclature. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 36 (2), pp. 314 – 320.
• Jansson L.B., Parnas J. (2007). Competing definitions of schizophrenia: what can be learned from polydiagnostic studies?. Schizophrenia Bulletin 33 (5): pp. 1178 - 200.
• Wilson, M. (1993). "DSM-III and the transformation of American psychiatry: a history." American Journal of Psychiatry 150 (3): pp. 399 - 410.