6. Hallucinations

Hallucinations can involve any of the senses, but these usually involve seeing or hearing things that don’t exist. Yet for the person with schizophrenia, they have the full force and impact of a normal experience.

5. Negative symptoms

This refers to lack of or reduced ability to function normally. For example, the person appears to lack emotion, such as not making eye contact, not changing facial expressions, or speaking without inflection. Also, the person may talk less, neglect personal hygiene, lose interest in everyday activities or socially withdraw.

4. Disorganized speech

Fragmented thinking is characteristic of schizophrenia. Externally, it can be observed in the way a person speaks. People with schizophrenia tend to have trouble concentrating and maintaining a train of thought. They may respond to queries with an unrelated answer, start sentences with one topic and end somewhere completely different, speak incoherently, or say illogical things.