Schizophrenia Research Trends

Body Image Deviation in Chronic Schizophrenia: New Research 35The findings that schizophrenic patients produce MF percepts may lead to improvementof our understanding of thought disorder of schizophrenia. The use of the Rorschach test inthe study of thought disorder is well established. However, using the Rorschach test for thepurpose of eliciting perceptual deficits, manifested in global and affective percepts such asMFs, might provide a new opportunity to understand the cognitive dysfunction ofschizophrenia patients.ConclusionThe Rorschach test was given to schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic subjects todetermine whether schizophrenic patients more frequently produced the “mass of flesh”percept than the non-schizophrenic groups did.DiscussionPART IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONThe major findings of the studies on schizophrenics’ body image aberration in thischapter are: (1) There is some aberration in schizophrenics’ body image. (2) There areaberrant as well as intact phases in their body images. (3) Aberration was found in functionalimageries, while anatomical imageries are intact. (4) Aberration is independent of symptomsand conventional neuroleptic medication.The main questions raised in the introduction were whether aberration comes fromsymptoms or is an effect of neuroleptics, and whether it is remediable or not. What thecomponents of body image are and which phase of body image is aberrant in schizophreniawas the first question we tried to answer by attempts at classification of body image items byfactor analysis. Nine body image factors were obtained, and some factors proved todifferentiate schizophrenics from normal controls. Although these factors were variouslynamed, after rather exhaustive attempts, the only discrete common feature among factoranalyticstudies was that functional imageries may contribute substantially to the factors thatmeaningfully differentiated groups or were related to depression. In addition, almost nosignificant correlation was found between aberrant body image factors and clinicalcharacteristics such as symptoms, insight, or neuroleptic dosage. The results of Study 1showed that when each component of symptoms and insight was cross-validated to the BIQfactors, there were some symptoms and some insight components related to body imagefactors; however, the overall results showed their relationship was quite weak. The onlystrong evidence gained through these studies was the fact that there are some differentialbody image factors, most of which seemed to relate to functional body imageries, but none ofwhich seemed to relate to the anatomical component of body image of schizophrenia.Thus the question of which phase of body image links with symptoms and which torecovery? leads to the next question, “What are the body images of schizophrenics and whatis aberrant for them?” In Study 2, attempts were made to clarify this question simply bycomparing three hypothetical components of body image, that is, anatomical, functional, andpsychological, between schizophrenic and non-schizophrenic groups. The results showed