Schizophrenia and Its Treatment

This volume aims to explain why, despite profound advances in psychological science and neuroscientific analyses of schizophrenia, outcomes for the disorder have changed little over the past 100 years. More specifically, the book provides a critical analysis of the limiting role on treatment development of diagnostic classifications and views of the disorder as caused by a core pathology, and instead promotes the idea of individually tailored, multimodal treatment for distinct disorder features (e.g., positive symptoms, cognitive deficits). Each of these features of schizophrenia may or may not be present in different individuals with the same diagnosis. These features may also bear little functional relationship to one another. This aim is achieved through a critical integration of contemporary psychological scientific and neuroscientific analyses of schizophrenia, as well as research on psychological and somatic treatments. Historical perspectives on diagnosis and treatment are considered as well.