Browsing by Author "Perälampi, Heidi"

Dissociation is defined as disruption in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior. The definition has some similarities with five symptom domains of schizophrenia; hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, disorganized motor behavior, and negative symptoms. This review aims to clarify the relationship between dissociation and schizophrenia from three perspectives. These are; dissociative symptoms in schizophrenia patients; schizophrenia related symptoms in dissociative patients; and the correlation between schizophrenia related symptoms and dissociative symptoms. The most systematically studied area was dissociative symptoms in schizophrenia patients, and the results showed that schizophrenia patients do not have particularly high dissociative symptoms compared to other mental health disorders. In contrast schizophrenia related symptoms in patients with dissociative disorder diagnosis is somewhat understudied area; yet a very few studies have found connections particularly between dissociative disorders and auditory hallucinations. There seems to be relatively high correlation between schizophrenia related symptoms and DES-scores. Research evidence was compared to three theories that have tried to explain the relationship between dissociation and schizophrenia. The theory by Moskowiz, Read, Farrelly, Rudgeair and Williams, according to which all symptoms of schizophrenia, (possibly excluding negative symptoms) would be caused by dissociation, found no support. The duality model by Şar and Öztürk, and Ross’ and Keyes’ model of dissociative subgroup within schizophrenia, were not in conflict with research evidence. However, more research is needed for reliable evaluation of these models.