Psychosis- a couple of questions

nacho libre

Can a psychosis being triggered by a traumatic episode such as the lost of a close relative? can it be there all the time checked, only to be germinated by the bereavement?

I guess these questions tell you I have a laymans interest in Psychology.

snorlax

wikipedia has a pretty good entry on psychosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis although it is not in itself a diagnosis rather a symptom of severe mental illness. Psychological stress is also known to contribute to and trigger psychotic states. Both a history of traumatic incidents experienced throughout the life-span, and the recent experience of a stressful event, is thought to contribute to the development of psychosis. Short-lived psychosis triggered by stress is known as brief reactive psychosis.

TheBaldyCoot

I have witnessed psychosis in a close relative. I also recieved an education in the art of the institution in an EU country. A comprehensive policy exists within the walls of this establishment which make one very fearful indeed that if one was to find oneself incarcerated in this hellish place one may well drown in ones own state. The institution hallmarked of what you would read about back in the days of the ECT brigade and the severing of the bridge between left and rights sides of the brain.

This particular state manifested from several sources and psychosis for the most part is a hit and run monster or a parasitic mental entity which has the ability to grasp the host for an indefinite length of time.

Caught early like any disease increase prognosis for an early, speedy and relief (from nearly all concerned) filled recovery. This does not negate post psychosis efforts and certainly replapsed have been known to occur.

The person is definitely never the same and will have burning fear of when it may take hold again. Imagine having little control over your actions as your mind translates everyday images in a confused and rushed stream of consc state. To make the brain attempt to understand and make pattern however illogical to the rational mind. A computer overload with not enough ram to process and thus breakdown/creating a collage of emboldened thoughts which may be utterly unrelated and normally exist only in the realms of the deity in that the poor soul thinks they are the second coming in quite a lot of cases precipitated by numerous factors in this particular case:



Chemical - Hashish, alcohol and copious and regular abuse of hashish.
Psysiological - unhealthy living and working long hours
social - isolation, hermit lifestyle coupled with disenfranchised people living in a collective unison of malcontentiveness.
cognitive - repeated dysfunctional movie watching
Trauma - death of close friends

Chemically induced via the doorways described is how I could best relay to the psychologist on site in the facility (draconian elizabethian rank little gaol that it is ) they held this relative on sanction from his Mother.

They asked for my opinion and as i was the lead mediator between family and institution the opinons i gave were based on qualitative research using the subject in interviewing and recording what was said for analysis, removing the social worker function which is to check the environment said subject lived/lives and interviewing the extras in this dramatic scenes - so interviewing the other flatmates, workmates, bosses in shall we say an unassuming way. I personally did not trust the social workers with all due respect not to fup up disguising the 2o questions to workmates/bosses etc.

This led to his release in due course but not without the oversay by a qualified and well known person in the field.

2.5 months or so being more institutionalised with each month. Visits, Phone calls, determining his state to the resident psychologist and a nurse who was keen to keep him there for "2 years" as he suspected "classic case schzophrenia" (which was not out of the question) and to insinuate the "family" (which was extremely insensitive and designed to create a barrier between patient and family to prolong treatment in my laymans opinion) was to blame to wit my rhetorical response was "are you qualified?" which does indicate hypocrisy on my part but there you go....

theres my pennyworth. No names and places have been used.

nacho libre

hmm.. i wonder though is there such a thing as a displacement psychosis? where you are functioning but only because you filter the bits of reality you are able to cope with but due to a traumatic events this wall of security/fuctionality comes tumbling down and you completely lose touch with reality and the ability to be lucid with your self and others.

snorlax

well if your talknig about PTSD (postraumatic stress disorder )? Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a term for certain psychological consequences of exposure to, or confrontation with, stressful experiences that the person experiences as highly traumatic. The experience must involve actual or threatened death, serious physical injury, or a threat to physical and/or psychological integrit.
Symptoms according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder include:: nightmares, flashbacks, emotional detachment or numbing of feelings (emotional self-mortification or dissociation), insomnia, avoidance of reminders and extreme distress when exposed to the reminders ("triggers"), irritability, hypervigilance, memory loss, and excessive startle response, clinical depression and anxiety, loss of appetite.
it is one of the anxiety disorders

hotspur

Nacho such a latent existence of being a psychotic with the possibility of a traumatic event triggering a psychotic break is certainly consistent with psychoanlytic theory on the issue. of course whether you subscribe much to psychoanalytic theory is another issue.

eth0_

TheBaldyCoot wrote:

(which was extremely insensitive and designed to create a barrier between patient and family to prolong treatment in my laymans opinion) was to blame to wit my rhetorical response was "are you qualified?" which does indicate hypocrisy on my part but there you go.....

The psychiatrist must have had some reason to believe family problems were the root of this mans problem. If you thought him insensitive, did you inform him of this? Did you make a complaint to the hospital director, to the health board?

Psychiatrists don't get paid determined on how long they keep someone in their institution. Your friend, i'm presuming, had been sectioned as he couldn't just up and leave? If he was sectioned he must have been in a bad way, and even if he seemed to be feeling his old self again, the illness can return. Medical staff need to be sure they're giving patients the correct therapy and/or drugs to manage their illness. You can't do this with just a few weeks stay in hospital.

When he said two years was your friends estimated time to be spent in treatment...unless he was severely ill, the psychiatrist probably would have made him an out patient for much of those two years. The focus these days is very much on treating the mentally ill (so long as they are not a danger to themselves or others) in their own community and surroundings as much as possible.

ECT is very rarely used nowadays, and it is actually an effective treatment for severe depression that has not responded to every other treatment available. It's nothing like how it's portrayed in the movies.

nacho libre

hotspur wrote:

Nacho such a latent existence of being a psychotic with the possibility of a traumatic event triggering a psychotic break is certainly consistent with psychoanlytic theory on the issue. of course whether you subscribe much to psychoanalytic theory is another issue.

I certainly do.

Paul M

<edited>