Approximately 20% of North Americans will be affected by a mental illness during their lifetime (Saha, Welham, Chant, & McGrath, 2008). Schizophrenia continues to pose new challenges today and remains a complex mental illness. It is a brain disorder that can occur to anyone, in any culture, and affects both men and women equally and all areas of functioning, including thinking, emotions, perception and behavior. Most commonly, schizophrenia strikes a person between the late teens and early 20s. However, it can affect children as young as 12 or remain latent in a person until their late 20s. (Saha et al., 2008; Ueland and Rund, 2005). The cause of schizophrenia is not entirely known. However, this shows that schizophrenia can be caused by the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Biological interpretations have dominated in previous studies. However, neither biological nor environmental categories are completely determinative, and there is no guarantee that one will confirm whether or not one will develop schizophrenia. Symptoms of Schizophrenia Symptoms of schizophrenia vary in severity and consistency. The most common symptom experienced by people with schizophrenia is the inability to distinguish real events from hallucinations and dreams. Some other common signs and symptoms are anger, tendency to argue, intensity of interactions with others, and violent behavior. They can appear very suddenly or appear gradually over a prolonged period (Saha et al., 2008). Symptoms vary from individual to individual, and for some time a person with schizophrenia may not experience any symptoms before experiencing a psychotic episode...... middle of article..... Resources, 70, 147—174. Pilling S., Bebbington P., Kuipers E., Garety P., Geddes JR, Martindale B., Orbach G. and Morgan C., (2002). Psychological treatments for schizophrenia, II: meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials of social skills training and cognitive remediation. Psychology Medicine, 32, 783-791 Roder V., Mueller DR, Mueser KT and Brenner, HD, (2006). Integrated psychological therapy (IPT) for schizophrenia: is it effective? Schizophrenia Bulletin, 32(1), S81—S93. Saha S., Welham J., Chant D. and McGrath J., (2008). Modeling disease frequency measures in the epidemiology of schizophrenia. Official Journal of the International Schizophrenia Research Society, 104(1), 246-254. Ueland T and Rund, BR, (2005). Cognitive remediation for adolescents with early psychosis: A one-year follow-up study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 111,193—201.