At 3:40 p.m. on July 18, 1984, James Huberty killed 21 people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro and was shot and killed by a sniper after 77 minutes continuous fire (Noe). Huberty's episode is attributed to him hearing voices before his excursion, a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia, an illness for which Huberty was diagnosed (Coon, Mitterer 488). This incident shows, in a very extreme way, that schizophrenia, whatever it may be, has the capacity to alter one's perception of reality and can be caused by several factors. For Huberty to receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia, he would have had to show signs of schizophrenia. delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior, or other symptoms causing social or occupational dysfunction for six months that should have included at least one month of active symptoms. In its day, only one of the symptoms had to be present, but the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders requires that at least two symptoms be present for a patient to receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia ("Schizophrenia"). Another change made in the fifth addition of the DSM is the eradication of schizophrenia subtypes, as they were generally unclear and caused a lot of confusion. Instead, the edition calls for "specifiers" to aid processing. These specifiers are similar to the older subtypes, but instead of using them to narrow a patient's scope of treatment, they are instead used to broaden the horizon of what may be helpful to the patient based on specific symptoms ( “schizophrenia”). What can be used as a specifier is the almost complete disintegration of personality that characterizes disorganized schizophrenia. This classification is further characterized by ...... middle of paper ......ts for a category, and it is more likely that they will display a few symptoms of each, or bounce between categories. And because it's difficult to categorize schizophrenia patients, it's difficult to identify what may be causing the illness. Currently, scientists believe that although some people may have a hereditary predisposition to develop schizophrenia due to the makeup of their brains, it is also likely to occur in those who have no chemical predisposition if they have been exposed to appropriate stresses. Works Cited Coon, Dennis and John O. Mitterer. Introduction to psychology. 13th ed. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning, 2013. 484-91. Print."Schizophrenia." American Psychiatric Publishing. American Psychiatric Association, May 2013. Web. December 23, 2013. Noe, Denise. “James Huberty and the McDonald’s Massacre.” Crime Library. Turner Entertainment, February 20, 2013. Web. December 20. 2013.