Psychosis Case

Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality, it usually characterized with hallucinations and delusions. A Hallucination is a disorder in the way things are sensed. One may hear voices, see things, or smell things that are not present. Auditory hallucinations are most common. A delusion is a disorder in the way one thinks; the most common delusions are those of grandeur and persecution, these are when one thinks that they very important or that someone is out to get them when in reality there is no good reason to think this. When patients experience psychosis, they may be confused, depressed, disorganized, and delusional, hallucinate, paranoid. Some who suffer from psychosis have difficulty with everyday things in life such as having a job, driving, and communicating with others. Psychosis could be caused by schizophrenia, alcohol and other drugs, major depression with psychotic features, and even a stroke.

A person suffering from psychosis may also have hallucination, delusion, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Psychosis is mostly found in people with schizophrenia. "Schizophrenia is a commonly misunderstood yet scary disorder that many people do not understand because of how complex or simple it can be." (phoenix, 2012). Schizophrenia is a chronic and disabling brain disease. People with schizophrenia often suffer terrifying episodes of hearing internal voices not heard by others, or believing that other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. Their speech and behavior can be so disorganized that they may be incomprehensible or frightening to others. Available treatments can relieve many symptoms, but most people with schizophrenia continue to suffer some symptoms throughout their lives. Schizophrenia may need lifelong treatment with antipsychotic medications to control symptoms.

The most common symptom of those that are diagnosed with schizophrenia is not being able to distinguish dreams and hallucination from reality. "Schizophrenia most commonly strikes between the ages of 15 to 25 among men, and about 25 to 35 in women." (news, 2009). It can also affect little kids and those in their late twenties. The psychotic episode is very serious and the person can't distinguish what is imaginary from reality, and might think they are in danger and they will try to stop it. "Schizophrenia, possibly many illnesses combined - it is a complex, chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder and affects approximately 1% of all adults globally." (news, 2009). "John Nash, an American mathematician who worked at Princeton University, won the Nobel Prize in Economics and lived with paranoid schizophrenia most of his life. He eventually managed to live without medication. A film was made of his life "A beautiful mind", which Nash says was "loosely accurate"." (news, 2009). Even if schizophrenia can't be cured, but there are a lot of drugs that can be prescribed to treat the symptom and also help prevent delusion and hallucination.

People that are psychotic may also have hallucination. Hallucination can take many forms including visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile, but for this paper we will focus primarily on the visual type. "Psychological research has presented the idea that hallucinations may result from biases in what are known as metacognitive abilities."(Science daily, 1). Visual hallucination some people realize they are hallucinating while some do not know. The people who can't realize they are hallucinating are schizophrenia patients. Hallucinations involve sensing things while awake that appear to be real, but instead have been created by the mind. "French physician Alexandre-Jacques-François Brierre de Boismont in 1845 described many instances of hallucinations associated with intense concentration, or with musing, or simply occurring in the course of psychiatric disorder."(West, 1).

Hallucination can cause you to be violent and/or aggressive, make meaningless movements, lose control of your muscles, and mix up your speech. There are drugs induced hallucinations. "Hallucinations may be produced by chemical changes deriving from internal metabolic disturbances that are otherwise engendered inside of the body, or that originate from outside of the body."(west 4). Examples of the drug is lsd (Lysergic acid diethylamide, or acid), it is known as a powerful drug. This drug changes a person's mental state by distorting the perception of reality to the point where at high doses hallucination occurs. " Many botanically derived hallucinogens seem to function this way--e.g., LSD and the ergot (a fungus) that grows on rye, psilocybin from mushrooms, mescaline from the peyote cactus, and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) from marijuana."(west 4). It is semi-synthetic. It's manufactured chemically in illicit laboratories, except for a small percent, which is produced legally for research. "Hallucinogenic drugs are substances that, administered in pharmacological doses (not toxic overdoses), create gross distortions in perception without causing loss of consciousness. These distortions frequently include hallucinations."(West 4).Hallucinogenic drugs have been used throughout history for a number of reasons. They have been used as medicinal agents as well as having served religious purposes.

Delusions are a symptom of psychiatric disorders such as dementia and schizophrenia, and they also characterize delusional disorders. "It defines delusions as false beliefs based on incorrect inference about external reality that persist despite the evidence to the contrary and these beliefs are not ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture." (Bourgeois, 2013). The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). "Delusional disorder is on a spectrum between more severe psychosis and overvalued ideas." (Bourgeois, 2013) . Delusion and hallucination in their different forms are the major symptom of psychotic disorders. "Unfortunately, patients with delusional disorder do not have good insight into their pathological experiences. Interestingly, despite significant delusions, many other psychosocial abilities remain intact, as if the delusions are circumscribed." (Bourgeois, 2013) .

An example of delusional patient, "Mrs. K is a 39-year-old woman who was brought to the inpatient psychiatric unit by police after being arrested for trespassing on Mr. L's property. Upon arrival, Mrs. K was adamant about being released, stating that she was simply entering her husband's home, adamantly declaring that Mr. L was her husband. She elaborated a story about how much the two of them loved each other,