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Psychosis
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Psychosis is a medical name for a state of mind that can happen with several types of mental illness. People who have a psychotic episode are often described as 'losing touch with reality'. People with psychosis may have altered perception, thinking and emotions. They may see and feel things differently than normal people and have hallucinations. They may ... have delusional beliefs or have paranoid thoughts and may behave differently from normal. Psychosis may affect speech and language so the person may seem to communicate in unusual ways.
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Psychosis is a serious medical condition with symptoms usually beginning in adolescence or early adulthood. In some cases the person cannot detect the symptoms of psychosis in themselves. Family, health care providers or counselors are most often the people that detect the illness and initiate care for that person.
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Psychosis can happen to anyone. Symptoms of psychosis most often begin between 16 and 30 years of age. Both males and females can be affected. Males tend to experience symptoms a few years earlier than females. Persons with a family history of serious mental illness are at increased risk of developing psychosis.
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Postpartum Psychosis affects between 1-3 of every one thousand new mothers. This mood disorder affects new mothers indiscriminately. In some cases, the woman that develops postpartum psychosis has no history of depression or other mood disorders. In other cases, a woman may have a latent condition that surfaces as she experiences the hormonal intensity of the postpartum months.
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Psychosis should ... be distinguished from the state of delirium, in that a psychotic individual may be able to perform actions that require a high level of intellectual effort in clear consciousness. Finally, it should be distinguished from mental illness. Psychosis may be regarded as a symptom of other mental illnesses, but as a descriptive concept it is not considered an illness in its own right. For example, persons with schizophrenia can have long periods without psychosis, and persons with bipolar disorder and depression can have mood symptoms without psychosis. Conversely, psychosis can occur in persons without chronic mental illness, as a result of an adverse drug reaction or extreme stress.
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Psychosis has been traditionally linked to the neurotransmitter dopamine, particularly an excess of dopamine in the limbic system (a structure deep within the brain). The development of effective antipsychotic medication played a large part in the success of this view, as the first effective antipsychotic drugs were dopamine blockers. In addition, drugs that increase the concentration of dopamine tend to trigger psychotic episodes.
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Psychosis