Psychosis is a word that gets spoken a lot, but that gets discussed very little.

About 1 of every 11 people will experience psychosis at some point in their lives. But even though it’s a common experience, we hardly ever talk about it.

In this episode of Ask A Psychiatrist, Dr. Erik Messamore and Melissa Xenophontos discuss psychosis.

Dr. Messamore explains what psychosis is, how it happens, and what to do about it.

We learn that it’s easier to understand – and probably more accurate – to think of psychosis as a misperception syndrome.

Psychosis by itself is not a standalone diagnosis. Rather, it’s a symptom that can have many different causes.

It’s important that anyone experiencing psychosis have a thorough medical and neurological evaluation to look for the cause. A medical explanation needs to be ruled out before viewing psychosis as a symptom of a mental illness.

Mental Health America has an online questionnaire that can help someone determine if they are experiencing psychosis.

Dr. Mesamore’s website has a blog post that lists the recommended medical tests to rule out medical causes of psychosis.

Click here if you’d like to ask a question or suggest a topic to address in a future episode.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• (02:00 ) – No standardized definition of psychosis, introduced in medical literature around 1843
• (03:04 ) – Psychosis should be thought of as misperception syndrome
• (04:45 ) – The brain receives about 11 million bits of information per second but conscious awareness works at about 50 bits per second. The necessary “information editing” is where a lot of misperceptions can develop.
• (09:00 ) – Misperceived significance can lead to the unusual ideas that often arise in psychosis
• (13:23 ) – Psychosis has many possible causes
• (15:00 ) – Progression of how to treat psychosis
• (18:56 ) – Medications can be a helpful piece of treatment, but should usually not be the only kind of treatment
• (21:04 ) – The goal of treatment is to get unquestionably better
• (22:39 ) – It’s important to talk about side effects in order to avoid or reduce them
• (25:12 ) – Specific symptoms of psychosis

 

QUOTABLE:

“The accurate way to think about psychosis is a misperception syndrome or a phenomenon, technically and realistically it is best to think about psychosis as a neurological symptom.”

“Conscious awareness is kind of like the dashboard of the entire brain processing.”

“Psychosis is fairly easy to recognize, but once it’s recognized, the next step should not be an assumption that there’s a mental illness. The next step should be the assumption that there’s a medical disease going on that needs to be figured out and treated quickly.”

“There are about 50 different diseases that can cause psychosis as a symptom… about 100 different medications or drugs which can cause psychosis as a side effect.”

“Nobody should assume that psychosis means schizophrenia at all – it could be many other things.”

“The goal of treatment is to restore a person’s function – the treatment should work; the treatment should make somebody better.”

“Any clinician who is worth having should be extremely interested in hearing side effects, and should work with you to prevent, reduce, or eliminate them.”

 

About the Host:

Dr. Erik Messamore is a board-certified psychiatric physician and PhD-level pharmacologist. He’s a consultant psychiatrist, researcher, lecturer, teacher, and solution-focused scholar currently affiliated with the Northeast Ohio Medical University in Rootstown, Ohio. He is joined on this podcast by Melissa Xenophontos, a journalist, radio producer and longtime mental health advocate.

 

Contacts:

Website: www.ErikMessamore.com

Dr. Messamore @LinkedIn

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