The psychotic individual is more withdrawn than a person with a neurotic disorder or any other mental disorder. The affect, mood, or emotional tone in a person with a psychotic disorder is immensely different from that of normal affect. In the mood disorders, one observes the exaggeration of sadness and cheerfulness in the form of depression and mania. In the schizophrenic disorders, affect may be exaggerated, flat, or inappropriate. In psychotic disorders, the intellect is involved in the actual psychotic process, resulting in derangement of language, thought, and judgment.
Schizophrenia is called a formal thought disorder.
Thinking and understanding of reality are usually severely impaired. The most severe and prolonged regressions are seen in the psychoses, regression. There is a falling back to earlier behavioral levels. In schizophrenia this may include returning to primitive forms of behavior, such as curling up into a fetal position, eating with one's hands, and so forth. The symptoms of schizophrenia usually occur during adolescence or early adulthood, except for paranoid schizophrenia, which usually has a later onset.