Paranoid Schizophrenia

Paranoid schizophrenia is identified mostly as one of the predominant positive symptoms of schizophrenia. The devitalizing symptoms blur the patient from distinguishing what is real from what is not, thus making it hard for the person to lead an archetypal life. The victim is characterized by unreasonable suspicion, having one delusion that is persecutory in nature, or having frequently experienced hallucinations. People with Paranoid schizophrenia have been found to experience abnormally high subjective emotional arousals with low or neutral scenes compared to high or aversive arousing social scenes. Unremitting delusional mood and perception create a vicious circle that paves the way for delusional formation and hallucinogen present in paranoid schizophrenia.

People who are under the limbic system come up critical when expressing paranoid symptoms. According to Casanova, the hippocampus act as a channel for steadily processed sensory information that converges at the entorhinal cortex (Casanova, 1997). The lesion present in the hippocampus is a task to integrate impedimenta of emotions from experiences one has gone past and their social value. Therefore, the lesion is ideally situated, thus resulting in the laborious processed sensory information present in the human environment (Casanova, 1997).

Following the concept presented by jones and Powell, there is a sequential flow of information through the brain that functions by following connections originating from primary sensory cortices and modality specification associated with the position in which there is a sensory coverage. The polymodal syndicate focus on their afferents to the supramodal cortical site and their final stage is the limbic system. Some of these projections sanction the hippocampus with multimodal sensory information acquired from external and internal environments. According to the tempolimbic system theory, lack of connections with physical sensors and motor cortices would holler why the limbic, which has negative, somatosensory alters the process (Casanova, 1997). As a result, malformed sensory clues are present in the delusion system even in the absence of other signs such as hallucinations. Therefore, this theory tries to bring findings forwards on the concept of limbic pathology and the association observed clinically for people with paranoid schizophrenia.

Two independent dimensions are used to classify the circumplex model of emotion experienced by people with Paranoid schizophrenia.  The first is emotional valence which points out the hedonistic tone of encounters that rages from negative to positive or unpleasant to pleasant events (Haralanov et al., 2015).  The second is emotional arousal that refers to a sense of mobilization ranging from lower inactivation to high activation. They are further classified into two other basic proportions: anxiety and fear (Haralanov et al., 2015).  Anxiety and fear are viewed in the context of high or negative valence whose affective state produces averseness, including paranoia.

The other important factor that tries to explain the concept of emotions in Paranoid schizophrenia is the social relevance. An instance of social relevance is the cases found when a person develops paranoid anxiety and fear concerning the nonexistent threat from other people. This leads to misinterpretation of a neutral social environment as hostile, dangerous, or threatening (Haralanov et al., 2015). These can be initially seen as defensive emotions, characterized by symptoms such as paranoid delusions and hallucinations. Thus, the person has distrustful interpersonal orientations or sensitivity (Haralanov et al., 2015). The patient, in most cases, will focus on receiving or rather interpreting messages, including voices from the outside that provoke them to have avoidant social behaviors.

The defensive social emotion for people with phenomenology Paranoid schizophrenia has been affirmed in classical phenomenology, which outlines the initial signs of incipient psychosis as having a delusional mood.  This is associated with constant anxiety and fears from anticipations of being under social threat (Haralanov et al., 2015). Delusional mood results from having delusional perception, which is exhibited as a misattribution that one is in constant danger in trivial and harmless social situations (Haralanov et al., 2015). Having unremitting delusional mood and perception forms a vicious circle that generates the formation of delusions and hallucinations present in paranoid schizophrenia.

Delusional paranoia in schizophrenia relates to how individuals process and respond to social stimuli. According to Lake, the most common mood disorder in Paranoid schizophrenia is grandiosity and guilt (Lake, 2008). This mood disorder forms the fundamental basis for underlying functional Paranoia. In the case of grandiose delusion, the patient feels that their possession is of high value. Thus, the other people may kill them to get them. On the other hand, delusional guilt convinces patients that they deserve to be punished (Lake, 2008). Both grandiosity and guilty delusions make the patient be in fear and constantly overwhelmed by emotions. The problem sets in when the patient focuses more on the paranoia rather than the underlying mood symptoms, leading to misdiagnosis of the disorder.

In conclusion, constant anxiety, worry, and misattribution of being under threat are trivial and harmless social situations hypothesized to elicit and cause the creation of delusions or hallucinogens in people with paranoid schizophrenia. In addition, the mode of the emotion of people with paranoid schizophrenia appears as either misrepresented as fearful by stable abrogate or as anger for an acutely paranoid patient. Therefore, the physician and patient should focus more on the underlying mood disorder to avoid misdiagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia to mere paranoia.

References

Casanova, M. (1997). The Temporolimbic System Theory of Paranoid Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 23(3), 513-515. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/23.3.513

Haralanov, Svetlozar & Haralanova, Evelina & Terziivanova, Petya & Moeller, Hans-Juergen & Hennig-Fast, Kristina. (2015). Subjective Emotional Over-arousal to Neutral Social Scenes in Paranoid Schizophrenia Psychosis Is Significantly Reduced by Effective Antipsychotic Pharmacotherapy. 1. 48-60.

Lake, C. (2008). Hypothesis: Grandiosity and Guilt Cause Paranoia; Paranoid Schizophrenia is a Psychotic Mood Disorder; a Review. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 34(6), 1151-1162. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbm132