depression

Positive symptoms are usually reliably controlled in most schizophrenic people (assuming they can tolerate the side effects) using clozapine – an anti-psychotic medications that works in mysterious ways and even in most patients for whom the many other available drugs aren’t effective. With psychosis successfully supressed by such drug therapy, it is the negative symptoms and cognitive dysfunction that are by far the most severe impediment to a schizophrenic individual being well integrated into society and able to live a relatively normal, independent life. The biggest hope for an effective therapy in the coming few decades stems from a combination of 1) drugs that increase brain plasticity and 2) cognitive training, which together might help schizophrenic people to develop a whole host of social skills and basic mental processes that have become compromised during disease progression.