APA Style Psychology Essay (Prof. Goodman Only!)

Let's listen in on part of an interview with Etta:

Etta: Well ..., ah ..., Jesus was giving me all these cracks, window cracks, and screen crack sounds telling me that they was going to break into the house. So I put the camera stereo in the room where they jiggled the window off to come through the window. And the camera stereo, the security guards picked that up, the message by putting that camera in that room.

Interviewer: Were you in danger?

Etta: Well, if anyone gets into the house they said I'd get shot.

Interviewer: Who said?

Etta: That's The Eagle.

Interviewer: Can you say a little something about The Eagle?

Etta: The Eagle works through General Motors. It has something to do with my General Motors cheque I get every month.

Interviewer: And you get that cheque because it's part of your husband’s work with GM?

Etta: Yes.

Interviewer: Say something about the relationship between the GM and The Eagle.

Etta: Well..., ah ..., when you do the 25 of the clock it means that you leave the house after one to mail letters so that they can check on you what how you're mailing the mail and they know when you're at that time.

Interviewer: And who's "they"?

Etta: That's The Eagle.

If you have the feeling that Etta is not making sense, you are quite correct. Normally out thoughts are rather tightly knit, having a beginning, a middle, and an end. Etta's thoughts-- the way things are associated with one another-- have come loose. She jumps from Jesus to crack in the window to her "camera stereo" to "The Eagle" to General Motors to 25 o'clock (which does not exist) and the mail.

Etta also sees herself as being under attack. "They" are trying to break into the house. There's some kind of plot afoot having to do with the Eagle and General Motors. "They" are checking on her. Etta has false beliefs, or delusions, that she is being observed and persecuted. Yet for someone who believes she is being persecuted, Etta doesn't appear to be all that upset. Her affect-- that is, her emotional response-- is "flat" and inappropriate to the situation.

When interviewers listened to Etta's incoherent story about Jesus and cracks in the window and her "camera stereo," they suspected that she could be diagnosed with schizophrenia. What is schizophrenia? Schizophrenia is a severe psychological disorder that touches every aspect of a person's life. It is characterized by disturbance in thought and language, perception and attention, motor activity, and mood, and by social withdrawal and absorption in daydreams or fantasy.

Schizophrenia has been referred to as the worst disorder affecting people. It afflicts nearly 1 percent of the population worldwide. Its onset occurs relatively early in life, and it tends to endure.

People with schizophrenia have problems in their memory, attention, and communication. Their thinking and communication ability b becomes unraveled. Unless we allow our thoughts to wander, our thinking is normally tightly knit. We start at a certain point, and thought are logically connected. But people with schizophrenia often think illogically. As with Etta, their speech may be jumbled. They may combine pats of words into new words or make meaningless rhymes. They may jump from topic to topic, conveying little useful information. They usually do not recognize that their thoughts and behavior are abnormal.

Many people with schizophrenia, like Etta, have delusions—for example, delusions of grandeur, persecution or reference. In the case of delusions of grandeur, a person may believe that he is a famous historical figure such as Jesus, or a person on a special mission. He may have grand, illogical plans for saving the world. Delusions tend to be unshakable even in the face of evidence that they are not true. People with delusions of persecution, like Etta, may believe that they are sought by the Mafia, police or some other group. A woman with delusions of reference said that news stories contained coded information about her. A man with such delusions complained that neighbors had “bugged” his walls with “radios.” Other people with schizophrenia have had delusions that they have committed unpardonable sins, that they were rotting away with disease, or that they or the world did not exist.

People with schizophrenia may see or hear things that are not really there. Their perceptions often include hallucinations—imagery in the absence of external stimulation that the person cannot distinguish from reality. Other people who experience hallucinations may see colors or even obscene words spelled out in midair. Auditory hallucinations are most common.

In individuals with schizophrenia, motor activity may become wild or so slowed t hat the person is said to be in a stupor—that is, a condition in which the senses, thought, and movement are inhibited. There may be strange gestures and grimaces. The person’s emotional response may be flat or blunted, or inappropriate—as in giggling upon hearing bad news. People with schizophrenia tend to withdraw from social contacts, and become wrapped up in their own thought and fantasies.