Schizophrenia disorders

This chapter describes the nature of schizophrenia, its treatment, and potentially fruitful directions. It begins by providing a brief history of the term schizophrenia and addressing variants of the disorder, epidemiology, and identification, diagnosis, and assessment. It describes two conceptual frameworks that inform the goals of treatment—the recovery model and the stress-vulnerability model—and summarize treatment methods, with an emphasis on evidence-based or promising interventions. The chapter concludes with a review of advances in the treatment of schizophrenia and promising future directions in this area.