The 6 types of schizophrenia (and associated characteristics)

A psychiatric disorder that can be subdivided into six distinct typologies.

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

The types of schizophrenia are what have long been used to determine the mental health of patients with symptoms of schizophrenia, although knowing how to recognize and distinguish between them is not always easy.The types of schizophrenia are what have long been used to determine the mental health of patients with symptoms, although knowing how to recognize and distinguish between them is not easy.

In addition, the debate about whether it is more necessary to differentiate between types of schizophrenia or to approach the phenomenon of schizophrenia as a whole has raised questions about the appropriateness of using different subtypes based on separate diagnostic criteria.

Subtypes of schizophrenia or just schizophrenia?

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

To summarize, it is far from clear whether or not to distinguish between types of schizophrenia, but many specialists in the medical field still continue to be very interested in this issue.but many specialists in the medical field continue to do so. Depending on the categorization of symptoms and the emphasis placed on the variations and different forms in which schizophrenia can appear, either a single concept will be used to explain all cases of schizophrenia or different labels will be used to make it more specific: there is no objective criterion to settle 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 disturbances that severe psychomotor disturbances presented by the patient.. These pathological alterations are not always the same, although the main ones are immobility and waxy rigidity, in which the person keeps the muscles tense so that he/she looks like a wax figure (hence the name of the symptom), the inability to speak and the adoption of strange postures while standing or on the floor.

During the phases in which catatonia is present, alterations in consciousness and other disturbances such as mutism, stupor and staring also appear, alternating these negative symptoms with others such as agitation. However, it should be noted that there can be a great deal of variability in the way catatonic schizophrenia presents itself, and most patients do not present with all of the symptoms associated with catatonic schizophrenia at the same time..

Finally, it should be noted that in addition to the discussion as to whether there are types of schizophrenia or a single clinical entity that expresses itself in different ways, there is a debate as to whether catatonia is in fact one of the manifestations of schizophrenia or whether it is another independent phenomenon.

2. Paranoid schizophrenia

One of the best known types of schizophrenia, in this case the symptoms tend to be more psychic. symptoms tend to be more psychic than motor.In fact, people with this type of schizophrenia have no motor or speech impairment. Among these signs of disturbance in psychic functions is the persecutory maniaIn other words, the belief that other people want to harm us in the present or in the future.

It is also frequent that in this type of schizophrenia there are auditory hallucinations and delusions (in the latter, no strange elements are perceived through the senses, but thinking is so altered that strange narratives about reality are constructed).

Delusions of grandeur, classic of megalomaniac persons, may 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 so many positive symptoms (i.e., those that define schizophrenia). (i.e. those defining the proactive behavior and initiatives of the person) and negative symptoms (i.e. 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 diminished mental processes rather than by unusual excesses of mental activity.

People with this type of schizophrenia showed many forms of inhibition, affective flattening, poor verbal and nonverbal communication, etc.

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

4. Residual schizophrenia

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

5. Disorganized or hebephrenic schizophrenia

In this type of schizophrenia, rather than there being 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 person is acting, the disease is expressed through the way in which the person's actions are organized and follow one another.. That is to say, that its main characteristic is the disordered way in which the actions appear, in comparison with the rest.

Their behavior is chaotic and is not organized around themes that are maintained over time, that is to say that they do not construct a more or less coherent narrative that gives rise to the persecutory mania or hallucinations that they have, for example. The person shows disorganization in his/her emotional states, in what he/she says and/or in the way he/she moves.

6. Undifferentiated Schizophrenia

This is a "catch-all" category to classify those cases that do not fit the diagnostic criteria of the other types of schizophrenia. of the other types of schizophrenia. Therefore, it cannot be considered a consistent type of schizophrenia.

Bibliographical references:

• Fink, M., Shorter, E., & Taylor, M. a. (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.