Schizophrenia At Risk Essay

Schizophrenia: Who is at Risk? Schizophrenia, the rare and mysterious psychotic disorder afflicting only 1% of Americans, is one of the most misunderstood disorders of all time. Asking someone to describe schizophrenia they might say, “split personalities, hears imaginary voices, or plain crazy.” Symptoms of Schizophrenia actually do include hallucinations and abnormal, “crazy,” behavior, but there is no evidence of multiple personalities being related to Schizophrenia. A full list of symptoms would include incoherence of speech, catatonic behavior, severe apathy, and severe hallucinations. Researchers have, so far, been unable to pin point how or why Schizophrenia develops and there is much debate over possible causes. The three greatest factors that are believed to cause Schizophrenia are genetics, environmental, and physiological.

It is unknown what gene actually carries the disorder, but it is proven to be hereditary. William Faustman, a clinical and research psychologist, as well as an associated professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, says in “Examining the Causes of Schizophrenia, “The genetic influences on schizophrenia are apparent in many wars. For example, family studies demonstrate that the closer in relation someone is to a person with schizophrenia, the greater the likelihood will be for that individual also to have schizophrenia.” His statement proves to be accurate as the probability for some to have schizophrenia increased significantly the closer in relation to someone with the disorder. Probability for the average American is 1%. For those with schizophrenic sibling it is 10%. Children of two schizophrenic parents is 33%. Genetically identical twins stand at 50% probability, that’s fifty times the normal likelihood (Faustman,