The Treatment of Psychosis

As long as there is no danger to the patient or to others, psychosis can be treated at home with an evidenced based approach that seeks to find the underlying issues causing the illness.

Psychotic experiences can be highly distressing and disruptive, whether it be hearing or seeing things or even holding unusual beliefs. If other people don’t experience or share them that it can interfere with day to day life, conversations, relationships and even your job.

While experiences are surprisingly common and almost anyone can have a brief psychotic episode, it can range from these individual occurrences to successions of episodes that could later be defined and diagnosed as a psychotic illness such as bipolar or schizophrenia.

We prefer to treat each individual as exactly that, an individual. This means we suggest treatment and therapies based on their specific requirements. We use our knowledge of current clinical advice together with treatment programmes to help people make a complete and full recovery from psychosis.

Counselling which includes Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can put your experiences into context, allowing you to talk about them and deal with them. Other therapies include Psychodynamic psychotherapy that looks in more depth and your experiences and tries to identify reasons behind them, whether it be unconscious or subconscious. There is also arts therapies that allows the person to express how they are feeling in different, creative ways. Drama therapy helps those suffering come to terms with the events that may be traumatic and the root cause. While family therapy can ultimately help you and your family cope better with the psychosis.

Aside from therapies, there is also the case for antipsychotic medication, this helps to weaken delusions as well as hallucinations, helping the person to think more clearly. However, as health professionals we will always look towards treatment that involves therapy first. When medication is recommended it’s important that the user does not take too much over a long time, instead using the lowest possible dose over the shortest possible time.

Symptoms of Psychosis

Symptoms of psychosis can often include those listed below. However, it’s important to be aware that not everyone with psychosis will experience all of the symptoms.

• low or depressed mood
• delusions (visual and aural)
• hallucinations
• anxiety
• trouble concentrating on tasks
• disordered speech or thoughts
• suicidal thoughts
• difficulty sleeping
• withdrawal from social situations, friends and family

Psychosis is often diagnosed when someone experiences hallucinations, delusions and disorganised speech and thinking. These can sometimes cause the person to hurt themselves or others, so it’s imperative to seek professional medical help if you notice these signs in yourself or someone close to you.

Hallucinations

When a person is affected by psychosis, they may experience hallucinations - seeing or hearing things that are not there, for example, a baby crying when there is no baby within earshot. These sensory experiences occur with no stimulus and can also be visual, with people seeing people or objects that aren’t there or experiencing smells or tastes that there is no reason for.

Delusions

Delusions are common symptoms of psychosis and lead the person suffering from having thoughts or feelings that are not true, for example, walking into a room and believing everybody is staring at them. This can lead to an individual withdrawing from social situations and becoming reclusive to avoid such situations where delusions occur. A person experiencing persecutory delusions may believe that a person or organisation are plotting to hurt them, whereas someone with grandiose delusions may think they hold an immense status, such as being a political figure or having special powers, e.g. ability to fly.

What are the Causes of Psychosis

Psychosis isn’t classed as a condition on its own but can be triggered by traumatic events and stress, or physical conditions like Parkinson's, a brain tumour or as on offset from drugs or alcohol misuse.

It also can be experienced by those suffering from severe depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. With the correct treatment, psychotic episodes can be reduced, and there is a good rate of recovery amongst patients. However, to ensure that the proper treatment is given, the underlying cause of the illness must be identified.

Types of Psychosis

Some types of psychosis can be triggered by the following conditions or incidents experienced by an individual.

Postnatal Psychosis

A severe form of postpartum depression experienced after a woman gives birth to her child. This is more likely to be experienced if the woman has previously suffered from mental disorders such as bipolar and schizophrenia.

Brief psychotic disorder

Presents itself as short bursts of psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disordered thought patterns and potentially suicidal thoughts. These episodes can last from a day up to a month and are most often triggered by traumatic experiences or genetics.

Alcohol or stimulant-induced psychosis

LSD is probably the most famous drug to trigger psychosis, but there are many other popular recreational drugs such as cocaine and weed that can cause hallucinations and delusions amongst those who use them. Misuse of alcohol can also induce psychotic behaviour.

Organic psychosis

This type of psychosis is caused by a person having a head injury or experiencing an infection in the brain.

Alongside the different types of psychosis, there are also mental health disorders which cause a person to experience psychotic symptoms, which include schizophrenia, delusional disorder, bipolar disorder and psychotic depression.