Schizophrenia

Every story deserves understanding and care. When you reach out to Mind Kind, we believe in providing professional guidance to nurture your emotional well-being. Let’s walk this path together.

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Schizophrenia is a chronic (long-term) psychotic (loss of touch with reality) disorder. It can be hereditary, occur on its own or be precipitated by substance abuse, especially cannabis. These predisposing factors cause ‘misfirings’ in the brain causing you to experience things that are not real. Features of schizophrenia may include hearing voices that other people do not hear, seeing things that other people do not see or having magical ideas (for example that you possess special powers) or paranoid ideas (a family member is trying to poison you). As the thoughts get more ‘jumbled’, you become completely consumed by your own thoughts and lose touch with your own world. This often causes a major decline in functioning and causes you to act on these ‘odd’ thoughts or voices.

People May Experience:

Aggression, agitation, excitability, hostility, social isolation
Delusion, amnesia, thought disorder, memory loss, disorientation
Feeling detached, general discontent, anger, anxiety, elevated mood, inappropriate emotional response or lack of emotional response
Hallucination, paranoia, depression, fear, persecutory delusion, religious delusion or hearing voices
Incoherent speech, rapid and frenzied speaking, speech disorder or circumstantial speech
Fatigue or impaired motor coordination

Our Approach

Antipsychotic medication is essential in treating schizophrenia. It will help settle the ‘misfirings’ in your brain and resets your brain chemistry. If symptoms are severe or the diagnosis is unclear, you may need a temporary admission to hospital. In addition to medication, it is important to address any substance abuse, manage stressors, re-establish sleep/ wake cycles and therapy to understand the disease and support you going forward.

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