Psychosis Flashcards
What is psychosis?
Mental disorder in which the thoughts, affective response or ability to recognize reality, and the ability to communicate and relate to others, are sufficiently impaired to interfere grossly with the capacity to deal with reality
Classic characteristics of psychosis?
Hallucinations, delusions, and disorder of the form of thought
Dementia praecox aka
Chizophrenia and other paranoid illnesses
Psychosis categories
Manic (/depressive/psychosis)
Dementia praecox
What overlaps manic/depressive and dementia praecox
Schizoaffective disorder
What forms of psychosis are more likely genetic?
Bipolar, schizoaffective, schizophrenia and other paranodi
What is a hallucination?
Perception which occurs in the absence of an external stimulus
What modality do hallucinations occur in?
All (visual, auditory, gustatory, tactile, haptic)
Haptic
Deep sensation (in organs)
What are ideas of reference?
Innocuous or coincidental events will be ascribed significant meaning by the person
i.e. thinking a news report is really commenting about their life or talking directly to them
What are ideas of reference related to in terms of the brain?
Dopamine “spike”
What is a delusion?
A fixed, falsely held belief
Primary vs secondary delusions
Primary - fully formed in the consciousness without need for explanation
Secondary - attempts to explain other psychotic experiences (hallucinations, passivity phenomena, thought insertion, etc)
Does psychosis impair your intellectual abilities?
No
What happens in a thought disorder?
Thoughts cannot be directly observed, must be inferred from patterns of speech
Thought insertion
Thought gets put in your head by something and someone else
Loss of insight
Reality testing is just another constructed process, driven by our brains
Involves filtering the information we glean from our senses about the world around us and interpreting their meaning, signficance, relevance
If filters are not functioning properly, you cannot tell
3rd person auditory hallucinations suggest
Schizophrenia
What is delirium?
Acute, transient disturbance from the person’s normal cognitive function
Insult to brain leads to neuropsychiatric symptoms
What are some symptoms of delirium?
Clouding of consciousness (fluctuating severity, worse at night, disoriented)
Impaired concentration/memory
Visual hallucinations
Depressive psychosis AKA _______ syndrome
Cottard’s
Hallucinations in depressive psychosis
Hallucinations of accusing/insulting/threatening voices - typically 2nd person
Mania with psychosis hallucinations
Tend to be 2nd person and auditory (hearing God’s voice telling you that you are great)
High in mood
4 core psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia
Delusions
Auditory hallucinations
Thought interference
Passivity phenomena
Hebephrenic schizophrenia
Affective changes are prominent, delusions, and hallucination fleeting and fragmentary, behaviour irresponsible and unpredictable, thought is disorganized and speech is incoherent
Mood is shallow and inappropriate
Social isolation
Catatonic schizophrenia
Movement disorder predominates, alternating between stupor and hyperkinesis
Automatic obedience, posturing and waxy flexibility may be seen
Persistent delusional disorder
Systematized, fixed delusions the major or only feature
Schizotypal disorder is
A disorder characterized by eccentric behaviours of thinking and affect which resemble those in schizophrenia, though no definite and characteristic schizophrenic anomalies occur at any stage
Acute and transient psychotic disorders last for how long?
<1 month
Schizoaffective disorder
Episodic disorders in which both affective and schizophrenic symptoms are prominent but which do not justify a diagnosis of either schizophrenia or depressive or manic episodes
