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Psychosis is usually considered by mainstream psychiatry to be a symptom of severe mental illness. Although it is not exclusively linked to any particular psychological or physical state, it is particularly associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (manic depression) and severe clinical depression.
It is not uncommon in cases of brain injury and may occur after drugThis article is about chemical substances. For other meanings of the word "drug", see Drug (disambiguation A drug is any substance that can be used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom, or modify a chemical process or processes in the body. The word "dr use, particularly after drug overdoseA drug overdose occurs when a chemical substance (i. drug) is ingested in quantities and/or concentrations large enough to overwhelm the homeostasis of a living organism, causing severe illness or death. Essentially is it a type of poisoning. Drug overdos or chronic use, although certain compounds may be more likely to induce psychosis, and some individuals may show greater sensitivity than others. The direct effects of hallucinogenic drugHallucinogenic drugs or hallucinogens are drugs that can alter sensory perceptions, elicit alternate states of consciousness, or cause hallucinations. This is a broad category that covers many disparate substances, the class of pharmacological agents whics are not usually classified as psychosis, as long as they abate when the drug is metabolised from the body.
Chronic psychological stress is also known to cause psychotic states, however the exact mechanism is uncertain. Psychosis triggered by stress in the absence of any other mental illness is known as brief reactive psychosisBrief reactive psychosis is the psychiatric term for psychosis which is triggered by extreme stress. The condition usually spontaneously resolves itself within two weeks, and the main goal of treatment is to prevent the patient from harming themself or ot.
Psychosis is a descriptive term for a complex group of behaviours and experiences and as such is not a medical explanationAn explanation is a statement which points to causes, context and consequences of some object (or process, state of affairs etc. together with rules or laws which link these to the object. Some of these elements of the explanation may be implicit. Explana in itself. Perhaps because of this, it is often confused with syndromes which may seem similar on the surface, or with words which may suggest, or seem to suggest a likeness.
The term psychosis should be distinguished from the concept of insanityInsanity (sometimes, madness is the condition of being in some way mentally "out of touch" with the real world or with "normal" human functioning, often assumed to be a result of a mental illness. A person may be said to be insane for a number of reasons., which is a legal term denoting that a person should not be criminally responsible for his actions. Similarly, it should be distinguished from psychopathy, a personality disorder often associated with violence, lack of empathy and socially manipulative behaviour. Despite the fact that both are colloquially abbreviated to 'psycho', psychosis bears little similarity to psychopathy's core features, particularly with regard to violence, which rarely occurs in psychosis, and the distortion of perceived reality, which rarely occurs in psychopathy.
It should also be distinguished from the state of delirium, in that a psychotic individual may be able to perform actions that require a high level of intellectual effort in clear consciousness. Finally, it should be distinguished from mental illness. Psychosis may be regarded as a symptom of other mental illnesses, but as a descriptive concept it is not considered an illness in its own right. For example, persons with schizophrenia can have long periods without psychosis and persons with bipolar disorder and depression can have mood symptoms without psychosis. Conversely, psychosis can occur in persons without chronic mental illness as a result of an adverse drug reaction or extreme stress.
Psychosis has been of particular interest to critics of mainstream psychiatric practice who argue that it may simply be another way of constructing reality and is not necessarily a sign of illness. For example, R. D. Laing has argued that psychosis is a symbolic way of expressing concerns in situations where such views may be unwelcome or uncomfortable to the recipients. Thomas Szasz has focused on the social implications of labelling people as psychotic, a label which he argues unjustly medicalises different views of reality so such unorthodox people can be controlled by society.
Etymology: The word psychosis was first used by Ernst von Feuchtersleben in 1845 as an alternative to insanity and mania and stems from the Greek psykhe (mind) and osis (diseased or abnormal condition). The word was used to distinguish disorders which were thought to be disorders of the mind, as opposed to neurosis, which was thought to stem from a disorder of the nerves.