Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder in which a person suffers from hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized patterns in behavior and thought. Schizophrenia is often portrayed in a very extremist way showing that people with schizophrenia are monsters who will never get better. This, as most things in the media, is not true on many levels. People who suffer from Schizophrenia will usually go through therapy while also being prescribed an antipsychotic. The pharmaceutical approach also requires therapy. All treatment plans involve long term stability. Therapy is used to aid the medication not to replace it. A person on medication still needs to know how to handle themselves if they do have an episode because like all things medicine will sometimes mess up or not work perfectly. Schizophrenia creates a threatening and confusing environment to those who suffer. This illness has a history of causing memory loss and other basic functions. Many are put in a state of fear or distress from this disorder from not being able to tell what is real and what they have made up leading to issues in trusting people and trusting oneself. Actions to help treat schizophrenia help assist the person adjust to everyday life instead of isolating or other unhealthy habits. Medication and therapy combined can help a person lessen their symptoms and also be able to deal with them. Instead of seeing the situations as catastrophic, a person who has been through treatment would instead be able to see things from a more realistic perspective or rationalize their way to it. Medication intervention for schizophrenia: The most significant goal of utilizing medication to treat schizophrenia is reducing symptoms- making them more manageable; however, it is not "one size fits all". Some people respond well to first-line antipsychotic medications, while others may not; when first-line medications are not successful, clozapine is another option. o With most medications comes side effects, which vary in intensity and duration. Severe side effects may prohibit some medications from being an effective and safe treatment. Research has shown that, overall, typical antipsychotics "do little to improve cognitive deficits or negative symptoms and can be associated with distressing motor side effects" (NOBA). Atypical antipsychotics are also not extremely effective and have undesirable side effects. Psychosocial intervention for schizophrenia: This form of treatment has proven to be a great tool for managing schizophrenia symptoms; specifically, psychosocial/cognitive remediation aids cognitive function and "[protection] against gray matter loss" (NOBA). Psychosocial treatment helps manage daily life tasks and functioning in society/school/careers.