Introduction
The term, schizophrenia, covers a broad group of disorders which affect the beliefs people have about the world around them. This results in disruption to their day-to-day lives and usually causes distress to them and also their families and friends. They may hear voices speaking when no-one is talking or believe that others are against them when this doesn’t seem to be true: 'positive symptoms' refer to such hallucinations and delusions, 'negative symptoms' include amotivation and social withdrawal and there can also be disorganised communication. Successful treatments include antipsychotic medications, social interventions and family and cognitive behaviour therapy.
Professor Kingdon is the Professor of Mental Health Care Delivery at the University of Southampton. His research has been published in many journals including Archives of General Psychiatry and books from Guilford, APPI & Routledge press.