Psychosis

Psychosis is a diagnosis in psychiatry for a mental illness. People who have psychosis are called psychotic. They have trouble telling what is real and what is not. It is a kind of altered state of consciousness.

The word psychosis has two parts. The first part comes from psyche, which means soul in Ancient Greek. The second part is the ending '-osis', which means illness or unnatural condition. So psychosis means unnatural condition of the soul.

People with psychosis may have hallucinations. They can experience things that are not really there. They may also have delusions, which are fixed beliefs and ideas that are usually false. Sometimes their personality changes, and they cannot think straight. Some of these thoughts may be paranoid. Not every psychotic person has all of these problems. Psychotic people often act in strange ways. It is difficult for them to live a normal life as part of society. They often have trouble with making friends, as most people do not understand them.

Psychosis can affect people to different levels. Some people can continue with mostly normal lives, while other people will need a lot of medical help.

There are many things that can make someone seem psychotic. These include poisons, drugs, diseases of the nervous system, and other illnesses. ^[1][2]

Many people have gone through unusual experiences that they believe are real. Hallucinations connected to religion or supernatural experiences seem to be quite common.^[3][4] Very often, these experiences cannot be called psychosis in a medical sense of the word. For this reason, some people have said that psychosis may simply be an extreme case of something that is experienced by many people.^[5] People who have suffered from what could be called psychosis may simply have had experiences that were very strong or distressing.

People with schizophrenia with psychotic symptoms have a problem with thinking about practical things because they are thinking very much more about abstract things.^[6][7]

In movies and the media in general, certain people who are shown as violent and antisocial are sometimes called psychotic. This image of psychosis is wrong. The people shown are usually psychopaths or sociopaths. They usually do not have hallucinations or delusions.

Psychosis is most associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, drug addiction and brain damage but it can be caused by a wide range of conditions.

1. ↑ Tsuang, Ming T.; Stone, William S.; Faraone, Stephen V. (July 2000). "Toward Reformulating the Diagnosis of Schizophrenia". American Journal of Psychiatry. 157 (7): 1041–1050. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.157.7.1041. PMID 10873908.
2. ↑ DeLage, J. (February 1955). "[Moderate psychosis caused by mumps in a child of nine years.]". Laval Médical. 20 (2): 175–183. PMID 14382616.
3. ↑ Tien AY (December 1991). "Distributions of hallucinations in the population". Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 26 (6): 287–92. doi:10.1007/BF00789221. PMID 1792560. S2CID 28848635.
4. ↑ van Os J, Hanssen M, Bijl RV, Ravelli A (September 2000). "Strauss (1969) revisited: a psychosis continuum in the general population?". Schizophr. Res. 45 (1–2): 11–20. doi:10.1016/s0920-9964(99)00224-8. PMID 10978868. S2CID 239907.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
5. ↑ Johns, Louise C.; Van Os, Jim (2001). "The continuity of psychotic experiences in the general population". Clinical Psychology Review. 21 (8): 1125–41. doi:10.1016/S0272-7358(01)00103-9. PMID 11702510. Retrieved 2006-08-19.
6. ↑ Pierre Maurage, Pierre Philippot, Delphine Grynberg, Dominique Leleux, Benoît Delatte, Camille Mangelinckx, Jan-Baptist Belge, Eric Constant Imbalance between abstract and concrete repetitive thinking modes in schizophrenia Compr Psychiatry. 2017 Oct:78:61-66. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2017.06.013. Epub 2017 Jul 1.
7. ↑ Ann Olson Psy.D.Schizophrenia and Modes of Thought Convergent and divergent thinking are examined in terms of schizophrenia. Psychology Today