In reality, schizophrenics are neither gifted nor "crazy." They are people, whose minds are filled with threatening and uncontrollable thoughts that live fearful and lonely lives. Schizophrenia is a brain disease, with concrete and specific symptoms due to physical and biochemical changes in the brain that is almost always treatable with regular use of medication. Without any treatment, most schizophrenics would lose touch with reality and get stuck in another world that's going on in their head forever.

Researchers now agree that while they do not know what "causes" schizophrenia, many pieces of the puzzle are coming together and making it clearer. They also constantly consider the role a person's surroundings might play in either causing psychological disorders or triggering the symptoms.

Hallucinations are imaginary experiences that involve senses. For example, the person may actually hear, see, smell, or feel sensations that are not really there. The most common hallucination is sounds or "voices" that come from the person's mind. The voice may be a familiar voice or not at all. The voices are not the schizophrenic hearing themselves think, they actually hear a voice as if a real person is talking to them. The voices may be friendly but are usually threatening or critical. Sometimes the schizophrenic hears one or even two voices talking to each other sometimes even keeping a commentary of what the person is thinking or doing. The person may also see visions, like a door in a wall where no door really exist. Or they may see ghosts or even people's faces might look like they are melting.

"Grandiosity" is another delusion when the schizophrenic make up a characteristic that makes them feel special. For example they think that someday they will become a famous Hollywood actor. Or they might feel they have the power to read other people's minds if they concentrate hard enough.

Negative symptoms, on the other hand, are loss of normal functioning ability. "Affective Flattening" is one of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. This causes the schizophrenic to look dazed and hardly make any eye contact or respond to anyone. The person may not have many expressions on their face except sometimes they will smile after the long period they were dazed, seeming almost like they were in another world and they have just returned.

Psychotherapy is another treatment. This kind of therapy is usually only possible if the person is stuck in their fantasy world. The therapist can help the person put the symptoms under control and live a normal life. There is not only therapy with a psychiatrist, alone. There is also therapy that involves the family or even a group that consist of other schizophrenics. The family therapy helps the family to understand more about the person's illness and how they should help and work with them so they feel more comfortable at home. The group therapy helps each schizophrenic learn more about the illness and how other people are dealing with it. The individual therapy with the psychiatrist was shown to be the most effective for people who live with their families.

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is a very dramatic way of treating the patient. ECT in not normally used for patients with schizophrenia unless they are also suffering from

Some common words found in the essay are:
, Therapy ECT, Affective Flattening, people suffer, schizophrenia symptoms, positive symptoms, delusions hallucinations, negative symptoms, blood flow, people suffer schizophrenia, blood flow people, cerebral blood flow, chemical imbalance, therapy helps, cerebral blood, therapy psychiatrist,
Approximate Word count = 1677
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)