There are many symptoms to schizophrenia that lets doctors know how severe the patient's case is. According to Barbour, there are thought and expressive symptoms and then more commonly known symptoms. The thought and expressive symptoms include disordered thinking, emotional expression, and normal versus abnormal. Disordered thinking is when schizophrenics do not “think straight” or are not able to pay attention for very long. When they are thinking, their thoughts may disappear at a more rapid speed than normal. Emotional expression means that schizophrenics lack expression. They may sound monotone and have an expressionless look on their face. They may also come off as anti-social: not making eye contact and not be responsive in a conversation. …show more content…
Normal versus abnormal means that normal people may be unmotivated or lack emotion, but that does not mean that they have schizophrenia. Also, schizophrenics may act normally, but that does not mean that they have been cured or was falsely diagnosed with schizophrenia. More commonly known symptoms include distorted perception of reality, hallucinations and illusions, and delusions. Distorted perception of reality means that their idea of surrounding objects is drastically different from the idea of others. Also schizophrenics can be motionless and and seem distant, but at other times can not stop moving or fidgeting and are very involved in a conversation. Hallucinations and illusions are when schizophrenics see, touch, taste, or smell objects that are not normally perceived as what schizophrenics are thinking. The most common hallucination in schizophrenia is hearing voices that are not really there. Lastly delusions are an idiosyncratic opinion that are not backed up by reasons. This can included being paranoid that someone poisoned their drink or that they are being harassed. These symptoms make life grueling and hard to control for