How We Define Psychosis Matters

"I define psychosis as the experience of finding reality confusing or unclear: confusing because people with psychosis have difficulty distinguishing what is real from what might be imaginary-both can feel equally real to them-and unclear because often, especially in the beginning, the person feels like they can tell what is real or not, but it gets cloudier over time."

"But the main reason I like this definition is that it resonates with experiences we have all had. Walk into a room and feel uneasy that the conversation suddenly stopped? Hear your phone ringing when no one was calling? Feel startled by something you saw out of the corner of your eye, only to realize that nothing was there? We have all had moments of confusion or uncertainty about whether something"

Psychosis is a syndrome characterized by symptoms without assumptions about causation or prognosis. It differs from diagnoses like schizophrenia, which indicate ongoing psychosis without another known cause. Delivering the diagnosis can offer a clear, non-stigmatizing description and avoid excessive negative prognoses. Psychosis involves difficulty distinguishing real from imaginary experiences and often becomes cloudier over time. Core symptoms include auditory, visual, and somatic hallucinations, plus delusions. Psychosis exists on a spectrum, and many people have brief experiences of uncertainty or sensory misperception, such as hearing a phantom phone ring or feeling startled by a perceived movement.

Read at Psychology Today