Self-images and related autobiographical memories in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness, which affects sense of identity. While the ability to have a coherent vision of the self (i.e.

History of abuse and neglect in patients with schizophrenia who have a history of violence.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of five forms of abuse/neglect during childhood and adolescence in a group of schizophrenic patients with a history of violence.

Methods: Twenty-eight patients hospitalized in a highly secured psychiatric unit were included. Abuse and neglect during patients' growth were evaluated with the childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ).

Impaired ability to give a meaning to personally significant events in patients with schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness affecting sense of identity. Autobiographical memory deficits observed in schizophrenia could contribute to this altered sense of identity. The ability to give a meaning to personally significant events (meaning making) is also critical for identity construction and self-coherence.

Self-defining memories related to illness and their integration into the self in patients with schizophrenia.

Although schizophrenia alters the sense of personal identity, little is known about the impact of illness-related autobiographical events on patients' self-representation. We investigated self-defining memories (SDM) in 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 controls to explore how illness-related SDM were integrated into the self at both the cognitive (how participants are able to give a meaning to past events: meaning making) and affective levels (how participants can re-experience past negative events as less negative: redemption and benefaction effects). We found that 26% of freely recalled SDM referred to their illness in patients.