Dear Reader,

Before getting into the specifics of genetic and other risk factors for schizophrenia, the distinction between schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder, since you mention both, needs to be clear. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder, which is a group of mental illnesses marked by hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms; whereas manic-depressive disorder, similar to depression, is a mood disorder. For more information on manic-depressive disorder, see Manic-depression? in Alice's Emotional Health archive.

Schizophrenia is often talked about, but commonly misunderstood. Its symptoms most often include hallucinations, delusions, paranoid thoughts, and hearing inner voices that no one else can hear. People with schizophrenia also have a distorted sense of reality and a loss of the ability to express emotions. Because the symptoms are so severe, a person with this illness often becomes fearful, withdrawn, and can become so disorganized in speech and action that s/he doesn't make sense to others. Those who are close to someone with schizophrenia can also become frightened by that person's confused and disoriented behavior.

Some people with schizophrenia have episodes of the above-described symptoms, but lead mostly normal lives during the intervals between those episodes, especially with the help of antipsychotic medication. Others have chronic schizophrenia and require long-term treatment. Schizophrenia affects about 1 percent of the population universally throughout the world, and males and females are equally likely to have it. The disease usually appears earlier in men — late teens to twenties — than in women — late twenties to thirties.

Schizophrenia usually requires treatment with antipsychotic medications that can subdue the frightening symptoms of the disease and allow the person to lead a relatively normal life. In conjunction, most persons with schizophrenia benefit from psychosocial therapy, which focuses in a number of different ways on allowing them to function normally, ranging from individual psychotherapy for the patient to educating a schizophrenic's family about the disease. Schizophrenia can be treated, and it's important that anyone experiencing symptoms that sound similar to schizophrenia sees a health care provider as soon as possible.

In popular imagination, schizophrenia is often linked with both violence and split personalities. Neither prejudice is true. Personality disorders are an entirely different subset of mental health diseases. And contrary to being violent, people with schizophrenia mostly want to be left alone. The only aspect of violence to which those with the illness are prone is towards themselves: suicide. Approximately ten percent of schizophrenics kill themselves.