The word “diathesis” originated in Greece and comes from the concept of predisposition. It The concept of predisposition has been used in the medical and psychiatric fields since the 1800’s. The inherent vulnerabilities …show more content…
Meehl in 1962 to analyse the etiology of schizophrenia. As cited by McCutcheon (2006), Monroe and Simons (1991) further developed this model in the context of major depressive disorder. McCutcheon’s discusses how, originally, it was assumed that the diathesis was a genetic predisposition that could be seen in biological traits. However, since then, researchers including Monroe and Simons (1991), and Abela (2001) went on to expand the concept of diathesis, to include factors such as cognitive and social predispositions. Zuckerman (1991) suggested psychological and biological traits could be considered to be diathesis, being necessary predecessors for the development of disorders. Zuckerman (1991), refined the theory by stating that in the Diathesis Stress Model, events that occurred within a year prior to the beginning of the disorder are considered stressor. While events that happened during the patient’s childhood are …show more content…
Hallucinations are very common in schizophrenia, this which can include hearing voices, seeing things such as the Devil and God, feeling things crawl on the skin. Another symptom, paranoid delusions, which are elaborate sets of beliefs, as a result of which a sufferer could experience severe distrust of others. In the book, Psychology (2005), an example is used that explains that a person suffering from schizophrenia could believe that the government is conspiring against her or that aliens are coming to kill her, she could even believe that the medication that would actually help her delusions, is actually poison, the medication is interpreted in the context of the delusion. Delusion grandeur is also very common, ; this is when a schizophrenic person might believe that they are a famous person e.g. Jesus Christ, a sufferer could insist on being treated like that person and will also behave like them too. Other common characteristics include the use of odd or even made up language, there could be a lack of basic life skills such as buying food or paying bills, social skills might also be lacking- the person might be very socially