Find a therapist to treat psychosis

Psychosis is still a mysterious and enigmatic phenomenon.

There is more than one way to conceptualize psychosis.

How we comprehend psychosis informs the way we treat it.

This is Part 3 of a series on the controversial Lindsay Clancy case. Read Part 2 here.

The crucial question of whether Lindsay Clancy was or was not psychotic at the time of the crime was central to the recent mistrial. Apparently, 11 of the 12 jurors were convinced that she lacked criminal responsibility for her actions. But was this because they believed Clancy had been suffering from postpartum psychosis or only severe postpartum depression? One of the primary problems with the differential diagnosis and conveying it to the jurors is related to the still extremely poor understanding, both in psychiatry and psychology and the general public, of the fundamental nature of psychosis. What is psychosis? What causes it? What is its significance? And who is really at risk for developing it?

Psychosis is a very broad category of mental disorder with a relatively vague definition. But most mental health professionals today would agree that psychosis basically consists of the presence of hallucinations and/or delusions, usually marked impairment that grossly interferes with social, occupational, or day-to-day functioning, and deficient "reality testing" or a so-called "break with reality." Schizophrenia, which appears in approximately 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent of the population across cultures, is one classic form of psychosis. But there are several other kinds of psychotic disorders specified in the DSM 5-TR, including unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, schizophreniform disorder, schizoaffective disorder, brief psychotic disorder, delusional disorder, shared psychotic disorder, substance-induced psychotic disorder, and psychotic disorder due to a general medical condition. In addition, psychosis may be experienced by sufferers of severe major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, or borderline, paranoid, and schizotypal personality disorder when under stress. And although psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia are chronically debilitating, some, like delusional disorder, are less so as regards daily........

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