In this study, we sought to examine
thought disorder and form perception with the PTI in a cohort of acutely psychotic patients with a first-episode of schizophrenia.
Research suggests, for example, that subtle signs of
thought disorder are present in individuals prone to developing schizophrenia (Coleman, Levy, Lenzenweger, & Holzman, 1996; Kerns & Becker, 2008).
There not significant meaning between
thought disorder and statistical learning.
Thus, individuals with delusions or formal
thought disorders may possess an "everyone-against-me" worldview and may be hypersensitive to negative information, especially about themselves.
This clinical reference begins by summarizing current knowledge about schizophrenia and follows with an exploration of the origins and development of the four main symptom areas: hallucinations, delusions, formal
thought disorder, and negative symptoms.
Hallucinations,
thought disorder, disorganized behavior and flattened affect all have been consistently found in EOS, while systematic delusions and catatonic symptoms may be less frequent (3).
Although the patient's presentation and family history suggested mood disorder rather than
thought disorder, an MRI of the brain and projective testing were obtained to better evaluate a potential first-break psychosis.
While these individuals tended to show primarily negative symptoms, 5 out of 14 (36%) displayed positive features (as measured on the SAPS), (2) mainly bizarre behavior, with one manifesting positive formal
thought disorder. However, as Wing (30) points out, it is particularly important in autism to evaluate any such "positive" symptoms against baseline of premorbid behaviors and thought patterns as persons with autism often have idiosyncratic perceptions and meaning attached to their experiences which may appear bizarre to others unless this historical and current meaning is understood.
These caught the attention of the psychiatric establishment because they led to the development of a diagnostic repertory grid test for schizophrenic
thought disorder (Bannister & Fransella, 1966).
We labeled these "working memory," "verbal and nonverbal memory," "
thought disorder," and "executive function." Working memory included raw scores from the WAIS-III Digits Forward and Digits Backward, scaled scores for the letter number sequencing, and total score for the BLERT.
The Humanist: How does any of this relate to Sigmund Freud's view that religion is a "
thought disorder"--something you address in A Brief History of Disbelief?
In 2 years, just 2 of the 48 patients at Rush continued to have benign hallucinations without requiring either a decrease in their dose of dopaminergic medications or an addition of neuroleptic agents to counteract the hallucinations or progressing to more serious hallucinations with loss of insight (UPDRS
Thought Disorder score of 3) or delusions (UPDRS
Thought Disorder score of 4).
