The Key Facts (The Schizophrenia Research Institute  (Australia)):

·         Schizophrenia is a biological disease of the brain. Research suggests that schizophrenia may be a developmental disorder resulting from alterations in the usual maturing process of the nervous system.

·         Around 1 in 100 people will develop schizophrenia during their lifetime, and this figure is the same all over the world. The incidence of schizophrenia tends to be slightly higher in males compared to females.

Definitions of sexually deviant behavior have changed over the past few years. DSM-II the previous edition, was published in 1968, and it defined as sexually deviant any “individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward objects other than people of the opposite sex, toward sexual acts not usually associated with coitus (sexual intercourse), or toward coitus performed under bizarre circumstances”. (American Psychiatric Association, 1968, p.44) Some years later, the only kinds of sexual behavior classified as disorders are: “those deviations from standard sexual behavior that involve gross impairments in the capacity for affectionate sexual activity between adult human partners” (American Psychiatric Association, 1980).

In medicine abnormality generally refers to a lack of integrity in any organ’s structure or function. A broken bone, an excess of certain sugar in the blood, an ulcer on the wall of the stomach-all are abnormal.
For physicians, the line between normality and abnormality is relatively easy to draw.

An obsession is an involuntary, irrational thought that occurs repeatedly. An obsession may be mild, as in those instances when we cannot stop wondering whether we remembered to turn off a faucet or lock a door before leaving home. In some cases, however, an obsession becomes so persistent that it markedly interferes with daily life. Severe obsessions often have a violent or sexual quality to them, such as the desire to burn the house or rape a neighbor, which makes the person feel guilty and horrified as much by the content of the thought as by its persistence.