Andrea Yates Research Paper

Great Essays
Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness with variable expression and uncertain etiology. It is a mental disorder characterized by severe breakdowns in thought patterns, emotions, and perceptions. Only 1% of the population is diagnosed with this illness and it’s a condition difficult to treat and understand most of the type. Anyone would see a schizophrenic person and immediately perceive them as weird and not be able to carry out a normal conversation with them. A person will be at higher risk for schizophrenia if it’s in a blood relative or identical twin (usually 48%). This illness causes depression, negative symptoms, and extrapyramidal signs that tend to begin in young adulthood. This is a psychotic term which means that the person cannot distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy. This can lead them to commit severe and more intense criminal acts of violence. They will …show more content…
This woman from Houston, Texas drowned her 5 children on June 20, 2001 in her home bathtub. Her reason for doing so was because she had constant voices in her head from the devil telling her to do so because she was a “bad” mother and this was the best thing to do for the children. She knew how to carry out the plan and did it in a specific period where she knew no one would be home with her and the children. After she drowned them, she calmly called the police and told them the tragedy she had committed. In 1999 she was treated with postpartum depression and psychosis. Her husband Rusty Yates claimed that this was not really her wanting to commit the crime, but that it was all due to her mental illness that was getting worse day by day. She pleaded innocence by reason of insanity, but it was rejected by the jury and they found her guilty sentencing her to life in prison. Years later she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was transferred to a hospital to receive treatment

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    The Most Dangerous Game: What is the mental state of General Zaroff? General Zaroff is the main antagonist of the story The Most Dangerous Game. He's got it all but he still wants more.…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Glass Menagerie She was an energetic and light-hearted child who was raised by a controlling, Victorian mother. Her name was Rose Williams, and her only escape from the overwhelming tensions and stress of home was time spent fantasizing, soaring paper airplanes, and creating fun memories with her beloved baby brother, Tom (Playbill, 2017). Unfortunately, there came a day when she was no longer able to evade the confining misery of her home. At the tender age of twenty-five, Rose was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a disease which landed her in one mental institution after another.…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects people both mentally and physically. This disorder takes effect over how a person acts, thinks, and feels. There are five different kinds of schizophrenia; paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, residual, and schizoaffective ("Schizophrenia - Types of Schizophrenia - Symptoms." 1). Each of these has their own tell-tale signs. Some of the recurring symptoms are being distant or withdrawn, having trouble expressing normal feelings or behavior, or not being able to tell the difference between what is real and what is not ("NIMH · Schizophrenia.…

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Introduction Schizophrenia comes from Greek origin and means, "split mind" (Coconcea, 2004). This is not to be confused that schizophrenia refers to a split-personality disorder. People with schizophrenia don’t have separate personalities. These are two extremely different disorders, yet many people have made this mistake in the Western culture. Another common assumption many people tend to make is that schizophrenics are violent and dangerous.…

    • 1043 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    All over the world people are diagnosed with mental illnesses that leave them, often from the beginning of their lives, unable to fully function in a normal society. Many of these cases leave the diagnosed unable to take care of themselves, which puts that responsibility on others. So, do certain mental illnesses leave more stress on the shoulders of the ill or the ill person 's family and/or those responsible for taking care of them? Having a cousin my age with severe autism, I’ve seen firsthand the burden that a mental illness puts on parents and siblings. Other illnesses though, such as schizophrenia, aren’t in full effect at all times.…

    • 1717 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Susan Smith Research Paper

    • 2578 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Susan Smith, you might have heard of her, she is the woman who drove her two sons Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months into a lake while they were asleep (Cavazini).This event shocked America, the thought of a mother killing her two beloved children. In Susan’s childhood she was faced with abuse, depression and hatred. The events of her upbringing will cause her to loose relationships with people and also cause the death of her two sons. Susan smith was born September 26, 1971 in Union, South Carolina (“Susan Smith”) Today, Union County has a population of 30,300 (Pergament).…

    • 2578 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On July 26, 2006, the Texas jury in her retrial found that Yates was not guilty by reason of insanity. She was consequently committed by the court to the North Texas State Hospital, Vernon Campus. She in the hospital watching the video of her children when she murdered them. Obviously her mental health issues are severe.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cannabis And Schizophrenia

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Schizophrenia is a mental illness where people experience different hallucinations and are usually withdrawn from the rest of the world due to not being able to relate to others…

    • 1766 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    According to Huffman and Sanderson (2014), Schizophrenia means “split mind,”but when Eugen Bleuler coined the term in 1911, he was referring to the fragmenting of thought processes and emotion (p. 350). The disorders occurred when a person has their onset in the mid to late teen years. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of schizophrenia is DSM-IV. Schizophrenia is one of the most traumatic mental disorders characterized by “delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking or motor behavior, and negative symptoms such as diminished emotional expression” (Huffman and Sanderson, 2014, p.338). People living with the mental illness have a negative effects in their lives as well of their families and their communities.…

    • 1534 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In March 27, 1996 a 20 year old woman named Sherry Sherrett-Robinson was wrongfully convicted of the murder of her four month year old son named Joshua. She was claimed guilty for suffocating her son to death. But the real story was actually something that slipped out of others minds and she was sentenced to one year in prison for a crime which she did not commit. On January 22nd, Sherry woke up in the morning seeing her baby boy lying face down on his bed. She took him to the hospital where Joshua was pronounced dead.…

    • 206 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On a nature vs. nurture continuum, nature should be followed by humanistic, social cognitive, behavioral, psychoanalytic, and finally nurture. Humanistic is defined as someone that has strong interest or concerns aimed at human morals and self-respect (Humanistic, 2002). Maslow believed we are detached from other animals because of our volume for self-actualization (Rathus, Humanistic Theory, 2014). Maslow and Rogers say “humanists and existentialists survive on the meaning of life” (Rathus, The Humanistic-Existential Perspective, 2014). While self-awareness possibly is the center of considerations but where people have entitlements to the capability of free selection, self-fulfillment, and ethical behavior (Rathus, The Humanistic-Existential…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Childhood schizophrenia is a mental health issue that leads to emotional issues that can emerge in early childhood and can be detrimental to a child’s development physically, socially, and emotionally. In my essay, I will discuss the process in terms of how this disorder arises during childhood, the emotional challenges that youth face when interacting with people and navigating their social worlds. Furthermore, I will be focusing on how the behaviour is maintained using a behaviourist and cognitive approach including what can be done to aid this mental disorder. Schizophrenia is an incapacitating and unforgiving disease characterized by severe psychotic episodes. It is a brain disease that creates confusion between what is real and what is…

    • 1557 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder in which it is hard to tell the difference between what is real and unreal, thinking clearly, having control over your emotions, relating to others, and being able to function as usual. This disorder affects how someone behaves, thinks, and sees the world around them. At times they will see and hear things that they think are there but they really are not there at all. They also believe that at times people around them are trying to harm them in some way or they also feel as if someone is watching them at all times during the day.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Schizophrenia is described as severe disorder that changes the behavior, thoughts and feelings of the person inflicted. Approximately 1% of the population will suffer with schizophrenia at some point in their lives. Schizophrenia is said to have positive and negative symptoms which can both be extreme in nature. I have had exposure to a close family member who suffered from schizophrenia. He struggled with many positive and negative symptoms of the disorder throughout his life.…

    • 714 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Have you ever seen a film, television show, play, or read a book where the main character hears voices, sees things that are not there, and has trouble coping with daily activities? Chances are this character is suffering from a disorder known as schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can occur for a number of reason and cause various symptoms to occur for people who suffer from the disorder. Many people around the world suffer from schizophrenia, a psychotic disorder that creates various symptoms that make it hard for them to function in society, however there are many types of treatments that can put sufferers into remission if utilized properly. Literature Review…

    • 1693 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics