What Is Psychosis?

Psychosis is a severe mental illness where a person's thoughts and perceptions become severely impaired. They tend to lose their ability to distinguish between the real and imaginary world. They start to think irrationally and/or become disturbed. It may or may not occur with organic damage. The person suffers from derangement of personality.
Some characteristic symptoms include confused thinking, hallucinations, false beliefs, changed feelings and changed behaviour.

Ernst von Feuchtersleben was the first to use the term psychosis instead of insanity and mania. It is generally associated with schizophrenia, severe clinical depression and bipolar disorder. There are a number of potential causes, including alcohol, certain drugs, brain tumours and a stroke. To determine the cause of psychosis, psychiatrists may recommend psychological evaluation and testing. In some cases laboratory or radiological testing may prove useful. Treatment options would depend on the underlining causes of the psychosis.

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Psychosis is just a general term for someone whos mental state and thinking patterns have lost contact with reality, i.e they are dillusional, irrational or illogical.

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