Schizophrenia: Origins, Processes, Treatment, and Outcome

This volume presents and integrates the latest advances in schizophrenia research and theory. Numerous leaders in the field offer new and sometimes opposing insights into six topics central to the study of schizophrenia: neuroanatomical conceptions, genetic research, information processing and attention, clinical symptoms and the course of the disorder, psychopharmacologic and family interventions, and social rehabilitation. Conceptual approaches that focus on the patient's information input processes, organizational structure of social self and personal experience, and family setting are discussed. The book also includes a summary (drawn from all the major studies) of the month-to-month course to be expected as schizophrenia progresses through its prodromal, acute, intermediate, and late stages. By integrating these various biological and behavioral research domains, the editors have produced a new model of schizophrenia--the configural oligogenic model--that recognizes and goes beyond the traditional DSM clinical diagnostic procedures. In providing a scientific, head-to-head debate on the origins, processes, treatment, and outcome of schizophrenia, the book offers a map for potential advances in etiologic inquiry, diagnosis, and treatment strategies in the coming decades. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including researchers, clinicians, and students of biological psychiatry, experimental psychopathology, clinical psychology, and psychopharmacology.Cromwell, Rue L. is the author of 'Schizophrenia: Origins, Processes, Treatment, and Outcome' with ISBN 9780195069228 and ISBN 0195069226.