Psychosis Flashcards
Psychotic-like experiences
Persecutory Ideation (e.g. felt as if people seem to drop hints about you or say things with a double meaning)
Bizarre Experiences (e.g. felt as if electrical devices such as computers can influence the way you think)
Perceptual Abnormalities (e.g. heard voices when you are alone, seen objects, people or animals that other people can’t see)
What is Psychosis?
A constellation of symptoms particularly disturbances in:
❖ Perception (Hallucinations).
❖ Belief and interpretation of the environment (Delusions).
❖ Disorganisation of thoughts and behaviour (e.g., speech patterns, odd behaviour).
❖ Mood/feelings (e.g., decreased intensity or agitation).
Positive Symptoms of psychosis
- Delusions/Unusual thinking
- Hallucinations:
- Thought Disorder
Delusions/Unusual thinking:
severe reality distortions/unusual bizarre beliefs.
Hallucinations:
sensory experiences felt with the full force of a perception in all modalities- auditory (most common), visual, olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste), tactile
Thought Disorder
Impaired ability to put ideas together in linear and goal directed fashion; disorganised thinking (e.g. thought blocking, derailment, poverty tangentiality). Difficulties making meaning from speech.
Negative Symptoms of psychosis-5 A’s
Anhedonia Asociality Avolition Affective Flattening (paralanguage). Alogia (Poverty of speech)
Hence, can give the missed impression that they are lifeless, absent & difficult to connect
Anhedonia
loss of interest in pleasurable activities or the anticipation of pleasure, not so much in the moment (e.g., socialising, recreational pursuits such as hobbies).
Asociality
lack of desire to form relationships, withdrawal.
Avolition
lack of motivation for goal directed behaviour (“get up and go”, “Initiative”).
Affective Flattening
- reduced expression through face, body and voice (paralanguage).
Alogia
(Poverty of speech) reduced verbal out poorly, difficulty elaborating.
How do you know if neg symptoms or depression?
Criteria overlap, first ep psychosis is insidious (subtle and harmful), depression is sadness, negative symptoms of psychosis is neither happy nor sad
Delusions
Fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. Cntent may be persecutory, referential, somatic, religious, grandiose.
When is a delusion considered bizarre?
if they are clearly implausible and not understandable to same-culture peers and do not derive from ordinary life experiences.
What is the distinction between a delusion and a strongly held idea?
- sometimes difficult to make
- depends in part on the degree of conviction with which the belief is held despite clear contradictory evidence
- diminished or distorted sense of reality and unable to distinguish the real from unreal.
What disorders include delusions?
schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder, schizophreniform disorder, brief psychotic disorder, substance induced disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder with psychotic features, dementia.
Can also be due to medical causes such as brain injury, intoxication, somatic illness
Primary delusions
Primary: Various types. Autonomous, original, and incomprehensible from a psychological point of
view. They appear suddenly, the patient has a complete conviction of it. Not psychologically understandable. E.g. uncanny feeling the world is odd, false memories, self-referential ideas
Secondary delusions
Delusional idea that manifests as an attempt to explain strange, senseless experiences. Psychologically understandable.
❖ Common Themes:
Persecution (central psychotic experience) , Grandiosity (special power), Control (e.g., thought insertion, thought
broadcasting), Reference (e.g., isolated or random events have special personal significance); Love (e.g., jealousy or possessiveness towards other person-erotimania), Guilt or unworthiness (more depression), Somatic (e.g., unexplained medical or perceived bodily sensation); Nihilistic (intense feelings of emptiness), Control (e.g., thought insertion, thought broadcasting), Mixed (two or more themes).
Persecutory Delusions
At first episode of Psychosis, over 70% of client’s have
persecutory delusions
Two central concerns (1) Harm is going to occur (2) Others intend to do it. Maybe be other people or machines, or systems. E.g. paranoia, I’m targeted by many trying to ruin my life.