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Self-mutilations as prodromal schizophrenia symptom. A case study

Konstantinos Tsirigotis1, Wojciech Gruszczyński2

Affiliacja i adres do korespondencji
PSYCHIATR. PSYCHOL. KLIN. 2010, 10 (2), p. 120-124
Streszczenie

The aim of this case study was the presentation of a schizophrenic outpatient case, who has been committing self-mutilations prior to the schizophrenia diagnosis. The patient was a young student (23 years), and the reason of coming to the clinical psychologist was self-mutilation. He came with his mother, who was worried with about his behaviour. Patient’s orientation about the place, time and his own person was proper, and the communication with him was apparently good. A cutting wound was on his left arm. He feels aggression and that’s why he commits self-mutilations. He leads a night way of life because other people don’t embarrass him. His statements were logical, coherent and lacking of thinking disorders signs. He didn’t make any impression of being worrying about his experiences and what was happening with him; his expressed emotions were not adequate to his statements. His profile in the MMPI was “neurotic”, but other indices (clinical, diagnostic and differentiating ones) aroused suspicion of psychotic (schizophrenic) disorders. Data derived from the interview, observation and the MMPI caused his sending to the psychiatrist with suspicion of schizophrenia. The patient began telling about his positive (productive) psychotic symptoms not before the MMPI critical positions content analysis. The psychiatric diagnosis confirmed the suspicion of schizophrenia; the patient was admitted to a psychiatric clinic and treated with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. In this case the outset of psychosis was insidious, lacking of acute symptoms. The preschizophrenic outpatients personality had traits of schizothymia, autistic withdrawal, and probably it was a schizoid personality. The issue of withdrawal one can consider in terms of stimulation needs and stimulation optimum. A separate issue is the relation between self-mutilation and substances (endorphins, enkephalins etc.) being secreted while such a type of self-stimulation. The statements above once more confirm the significance of cooperation between clinical psychologist and psychiatrist, the importance of clinical diagnosis (vs. the psychometric one), as well as of the content clinical interpretation of psychometric and test data.

Słowa kluczowe
schizophrenia, self-mutilation, prodromal symptoms, preschizophrenic personality, psychometric diagnosis, clinical diagnosis