Disorganized schizophrenia is a subtype of schizophrenia as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This type is characterized by prominent disorganized behavior and speech (see formal thought disorder), and flat or inappropriate emotion and affect. Furthermore, the criteria for the catatonic subtype of schizophrenia must not have been met. This type of schizophrenia is also known as hebephrenia. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, is the handbook used most often in diagnosing mental disorders in the United States and internationally. ... In psychiatry, thought disorder or formal thought disorder is a term used to describe a symptom of psychotic mental illness. ... In psychology and common use, emotion is the language of a persons mental state of being, normally based in or tied to their internal (physical) and external (social) sensory feeling. ... In psychology, affect is an emotion or subjectively experienced feeling, or the involvement of such processes in a psychological system or theory. ... Catatonia is a severe psychiatric and medical condition, characterized by, in catatonic stupor, a general absence of motor activity, and, in catatonic excitement, violent, hyperactive behavior directed at oneself or others but with no visible purpose. ...

Unlike the paranoid subtype of schizophrenia, delusions and hallucinations are not the most prominent feature, although fragmentary delusions and hallucinations may be present. A delusion is commonly defined as a false belief, and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. ... A hallucination is a false sensory perception in the absence of an external stimulus, as distinct from an illusion, which is a misperception of an external stimulus. ...

The emotional responses of people diagnosed with this subtype can often seem strange or inappropriate to the situation. Inappropriate facial responses may be common and behavior is sometimes described as 'silly'. Complete lack of expressed emotion is sometimes seen, as is an apparent indifference, anhedonia (the lack of pleasure), and avolition (a lack of motivation). Some of these features are also present in other types of schizophrenia, but they are most prominent in Disorganized Schizophrenia. This article is about an emotion. ... In psychology, avolition is a general lack of desire, motivation, and persistence. ...

This form of schizophrenia is typically associated with early onset (often between the ages of 15 and 25 years) and is thought to have a poor prognosis because of the rapid development of 'negative' symptoms and decline in social functioning.¹ Prognosis (older Greek πρόγνωσις, modern Greek πρόγνωση - literally fore-knowing, foreseeing) is a medical term denoting the doctors prediction of how a patients disease will progress, and whether there is chance of recovery. ...

Disorganized schizophrenia is thought to be an extreme expression of the 'disorganization syndrome' that has been hypothesised to one aspect of a three-factor model of symptoms in schizophrenia². The other factors being 'reality distortion' (involving delusions and hallucinations) and 'psychomotor poverty' (poverty of speech, lack of spontaneous movement and various aspects of blunting of emotion).

See also

• formal thought disorder
• schizophrenia
• schizotypy

In psychiatry, thought disorder or formal thought disorder is a term used to describe a symptom of psychotic mental illness. ... Schizotypy is a psychological concept which describes a continuum of personality characteristics and experiences related to psychosis and in particular, schizophrenia. ...

References

¹McGlashan TH, Fenton WS (1993) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=8451614) Subtype progression and pathophysiologic deterioration in early schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 19 (1), 71-84.

²Liddle PF. (1987) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=3690102) The symptoms of chronic schizophrenia. A re-examination of the positive-negative dichotomy. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 145-51.