Schizophrenia, also sometimes called split personality disorder, is one of the psychotic mental disorder and is characterized by symptoms of thought, behavior, and social problems.

Schizophrenia seems to result from a breakdown in the mental process by which we differentiate our inner self from the outside world. To a normal person, thinking, speaking and hearing are quite different subjective experiences, but in schizophrenia, this differentiation becomes blurred.

Prevalence of Schizophrenia:

It is a chronic, severe, debilitating mental illness that affects about 1% of the population, corresponding to more than 2 million people in the United States alone.

It affects men about one and a half times more commonly than women.

Symptoms Schizophrenia:

• Disturbance in thinking: The thought problems associated with schizophrenia are described as irrelevant in that the person's thinking is completely out of touch with reality at times. The patient experience his thoughts being controlled by an external force.
• Disturbance of verbal behavior: The patient gives new meaning to words or coins new words, repeating words used in an interview question, senseless repetition of words or phrases, and linking of words without meaning.
• Disturbance of motor behavior: The individual who is schizophrenic has the following complaints, which are usually observed by relatives and by himself, for example, stereotyped behavior, destructive behavior, criminal behavior, withdrawal behavior, and excessive daydreaming.
• Disturbance of perception: The sufferer may hear voices or see people in no way present or feel like bugs are crawling on their skin when there are none.
• Disturbance of emotions: The patient has diminished intensity of emotional experience, inability to experience or imagine pleasant emotions, loss of empathy, and simultaneous experiencing of two opposite types of feelings.

Causes of Schizophrenia :

There is more than one reason why patients develop schizophrenia. Researchers and scientists are trying to learn more about biological, psychological, and social factors which influence the development of schizophrenia. The following are all believed to play a role in the occurrence of schizophrenia.

• Genetics and hereditary.
• Personality type.
• Social factors.
• Difficult circumstances like early loss of a parent, parental poverty, bullying, witnessing parental violence, emotional, sexual or physical abuse, physical or emotional neglect, etc.

Sr No	Types of schizophrenia	Description
1.	Paranoid schizophrenia	Preoccupied with one or more visual or hearing delusions e.g., Someone following him or somebody is plotting a plan to harm him.
2.	Disorganized schizophrenia	Irrelevant speech and behavior.
3.	Catatonic schizophrenia	The person with this type of schizophrenia has stereotyped behavior, imitation of movements or gestures, withdrawn behavior, and repeating what others say or do.
4.	Undifferentiated schizophrenia	This is characterized by episodes of delusions (false belief or opinion), hallucinations (the object or event so perceived), irrelevant speech or behavior, and negative symptoms (destructive behavior).
5.	Residual schizophrenia	This kind of schizophrenia has social withdrawal, eccentric behavior, illogical thinking etc.

Treatment of Schizophrenia:

1. Conventional treatment:
2. Homeopathic Treatment for Schizophrenia

Medicines are prescribed on the bases on individual case analysis.

• Relief in your irrelevant thoughts, irrelevant behavior, irrelevant speech, etc.
• Relief in delusions and hallucinations.
• Initially you have to continue conventional medicines as well, as sudden stoppage of it may lead to withdrawal symptoms.
• The need of the tranquilizers will be reduced or you may even be able to taper it to stop eventually.
• Absolutely safe treatment without side effects.

Duration of the treatment:

The total duration of treatment varies from case to case, depending on the following factor-

• The severity of Schizophrenia.
• Duration of Schizophrenia.
• Types of Schizophrenia.
• Associated disorders such as paranoid state, obsessive traits, etc.
• Current and previous medications.

Homeopathy for Schizophrenia:

• It may work in early and mild cases
• It is based on a deeper understanding of the patient's mindset, stress coping system, and genetic tendency.
• It is free from side effects.
• It is not habit-forming.
• It does not lead to drug dependency.

It may be noted that homeopathy does not work effectively in all cases of Schizophrenia, especially those that are chronic, severe, and have drug dependency. Homeopathy is not recommended for Schizophrenia, in our experience.