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Psychosis: Schizophrenia
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Psychosis is considered a serious mental health condition which often starts in young adulthood. Although it can be very frightening, but can ... be successfully controlled through medication. The two most common forms of psychosis are schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder.
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Psychosis is considered by mainstream psychiatry to be a symptom of severe mental illness, but is not a diagnosis in itself. Although it is not exclusively linked to any particular psychological or physical state, it is particularly associated with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (manic depression) and severe clinical depression. There are ... detectable physical pathologies that can induce a psychotic state, including brain injury or other neurological disorder, drug intoxication and withdrawal (especially alcohol, barbiturates, and sometimes benzodiazepines), lupus, electrolyte disorder in the elderly (such as urinary tract infections) and pain syndromes.
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This report reviews evidence on two hypotheses about the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis. The first hypothesis is that heavy cannabis use may cause a "cannabis psychosis" - a psychosis that would not occur in the absence of cannabis use, the symptoms of which are preceded by heavy cannabis use and remit after abstinence. The second hypothesis is that cannabis use may precipitate schizophrenia, or exacerbate its symptoms.
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In the mid nineteenth century, the unitary psychosis theory referred to a continuum of mental conditions from health to disease and was based on the importance of symptoms. In the twentieth century, by contrast, the term ‘unitary psychosis’ was applied to the two psychoses, schizophrenia and manic-depressive insanity, with the atypical psychoses bridging these two. Contemporary British psychiatrists have split two ways in their views on this question. Some, who analysed symptoms and emphasized the genetic basis of these disorders, have favoured the concept of unitary psychosis. Others, on the basis of neuroimaging, have rejected the unitary theory in favour of three categories of psychosis: congenital dementia praecox with poor prognosis; an adult form of schizophrenia with good prognosis; and bipolar affective disorder.
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When psychosis occurs for the first time it is difficult to know the cause. Psychosis is associated with a number of medical conditions including schizophrenia, depression, bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder and substance abuse, among others. Because the first episode of psychosis can signal a variety of conditions, it is important to seek a thorough medical assessment.
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Next up, host Dr. Fred Goodwin talks to Dr. Wayne Fenton, a deputy division director for clinical affairs at the National Institute of Mental Health www.nimh.nih.gov and a researcher in schizophrenia, a leading cause of psychosis. Among his other accomplishments, Dr. Fenton wrote much of the material on psychosis for The Merck Manual www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual, a diagnostic tool for doctors and the world's most widely used medical text. Dr. Fenton explains that psychosis is a symptom of more than 120 different conditions, including kidney disorders, substance abuse, reactions to prescription medication, hyperthyroidism, deafness, head injuries and Alzheimer's, as well as depression, manic depression and schizophrenia.
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