Is it the case that you have been suffering from symptoms like social withdrawal, blunt effect, or poor attention and no psychosis? Then you are probably suffering from residual schizophrenia. To get to the depth of its meaning, we first need to understand schizophrenia and then try to understand symptoms of residual schizophrenia, and what differentiates it from other types of schizophrenia (yes there are five!) and the possibility of treatment. All we be laid down in the words below, so let’s begin:
Defining Schizophrenia
To understand residual schizophrenia, you need to understand schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness defined by difficulty in recognizing what is real and what’s not inside one’s head. The symptoms of schizophrenia are characterized by psychosis (which includes hallucinations and delusion and are also known as positive psychotic symptoms) in addition to the ones called positive disorganized symptoms and negative symptoms. We’ll list these below:
Positive Disorganized Symptoms
- Disorganized speech, thought, or language
- Thought disorder (thinking bizarrely, tangential thinking, or thinking that does not have a cause-and-effect relationship)
- Generally disorganized behavior
Read More: Disorganized Schizophrenia: Understanding The Disorder And Its Challenges
Negative Symptoms (Also Called Residual Schizophrenia Symptoms – More on it later)
- Poverty of speech (Alogia)
- Flat/Blunt/Inappropriate affect
- Attention deficits
- Loss of social interest
- Lack of pleasure (Anodontia)
- Lack of motivation (Avolition)
What are these? Well, positive psychotic symptoms tend to extend or distort normal function. Positive disorganized symptoms, as the name suggests, have a tendency to disorganize the normal function of the affected individual, and negative symptoms refer to a diminution or complete absence of normal behaviors. Then where does residual schizophrenia warrant into all this? We will talk about that in the next section.
What is Residual Schizophrenia?
If you are asking the question, what is residual schizophrenia, the answer to this question is that residual schizophrenia is essentially one of the five types of schizophrenia you can be diagnosed with, which include paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, and undifferentiated. Paranoid is the one where people experience at least one delusion or frequent auditory hallucinations.
In disorganized schizophrenia, the symptoms are disorganized thought, disorganized speech, and flat affect. In the catatonic subtype, the affected individual experiences catatonia, which may include unresponsiveness or restlessness, in addition to other symptoms of schizophrenia.
If symptoms from more than one of the other subtypes of schizophrenia are present, but there aren’t enough of them then it means one is suffering from undifferentiated schizophrenia.
We still haven’t gotten to the stage where we get to know about residual type schizophrenia. Well, people with residual schizophrenia, experience symptoms of schizophrenia but they are weaker than in other subtypes. In residual type schizophrenia, while all types that relate to the symptoms of residual schizophrenia are weak, negative symptoms are the most prominent. These residual symptoms of schizophrenia include but are not limited to (some of these are mentioned before but in a residual schizophrenia example, they are more recognizable):
Read More: Schizophrenia and Insomnia: Understanding the Link and Coping Strategies
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Bizarre beliefs
These refer to strange beliefs that people with residual schizophrenia have. These beliefs aren’t the same as delusions, which are usually severe.
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Unusual perceptual experiences
This is the way a person perceives the world around them. More precisely, a person with residual schizophrenia perceives events that others do not, which turn unusual with residual.
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Distorted thought process
Distorted thinking refers to a way of thinking that is inaccurate or negatively biased, which can essentially lead to negative outcomes
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Flat affect
This is one of those residual schizophrenia symptoms where there is an affected individual’s inability to express their emotions in the same way as other people normally do
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Avolition – Lack of motivation
Avolition is essentially a complete lack of motivation that makes it difficult for affected individuals to complete tasks or engage in activities.
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Anhedonia – Lack of interest
Anhedonia is essentially the inability to feel any pleasure in pleasurable situations or circumstances, making it one of the worst residual schizophrenia symptoms.
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Alogia – Disorganized thoughts, speech & language
Behavior that is disorganized in every sense, which is when speech, thoughts, language, or general behavior is unclear, unorganized, or purposeless.
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Asociality – Lack of social interaction and interest
This is when one lacks the desire for any kind of social interaction and interest in social activity.
What Causes Residual Schizophrenia?
What causes residual schizophrenia is a question that is asked many times in extensive studies of schizophrenia but the answer that has been provided has always been negligible and inherently inconclusive. But as with general schizophrenia, it is probably caused by a range of different factors such as genetics, family history, substance abuse, chemical imbalance in the brain, differences in brain structure and anatomy, or even the environment that surrounds the affected individual.
Read More: A Comprehensive Guide To Anxiety And Schizophrenia
Residual Schizophrenia Treatment
Like schizophrenia, which starts in early adulthood, residual schizophrenia will also worsen if it is left untreated as there is no cure. Treatment can be done in a combination of ways, sometimes done separately and sometimes combining different treatment methods, which include psychotherapy and medication.
Antipsychotic Medications
Antipsychotic medications, which come in the form of daily pills or liquid, reduce the intensity and duration of residual schizophrenia symptoms considerably. There can be side effects though such as weight gain, drowsiness, and dizziness.
Psychotherapy
It is a type of therapy that is defined by its “talk” feature, where patients are able to converse with a mental health professional such as a psychiatrist. A specific type of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is extremely suitable for treating residual schizophrenia, allowing affected individuals to cope with it in a much better way by helping them resolve the negative thought processes associated with the ailment. This type of therapy can also be used with antipsychotic medications described above, so therapy can be complemented as part of the two-pronged approach for treating and abating residual schizophrenia symptoms.
Conclusion
We hope that you fully understand what essentially is residual schizophrenia and anything related to the symptoms of residual schizophrenia. Treatment options are also provided, which can include psychotherapy, medication, or a combination of these. If you ever need either of these treatment options, the experts at Solid Foundation Psychiatry are more than adept at treating something like residual schizophrenia and other mental conditions like Anxiety, Psychosis, ADHD, Depression, Schizophrenia, or PTSD via additional treatment options like telepsychiatry.