Schizophrenia Spectrum & Personality Disorders

Schizophrenia is characterized by positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech/behavior — things "added" to normal experience) and negative symptoms (flat affect, avolition, social withdrawal, alogia — things "taken away"). Positive symptoms often respond well to antipsychotic medication, while negative symptoms are typically harder to treat and have a bigger long-term impact on functioning, which is why psychosocial rehabilitation and social skills support matter alongside medication. Antipsychotic side effects are heavily tested: extrapyramidal symptoms (acute dystonia, akathisia, pseudoparkinsonism, tardive dyskinesia — a potentially irreversible late complication of long-term use) and the rare but life-threatening neuroleptic malignant syndrome (rigidity, hyperthermia, altered mental status, autonomic instability), which requires stopping the antipsychotic and providing emergency supportive care.