2 - Misconceptions about Psychosis

In earlier times, psychosis was associated with sin and evil spirits. The general public still have lingering false ideas about psychosis. Many people are uninformed enough to consider it a disgrace if anyone in the family has any history of mental illness. If someone we know has a serious physical illness such as heart disease or cancer, we do not say that condition is disgraceful.

The person suffering from psychosis requires just as much care and understanding as the one with a physical illness. Punishment or rejection does not help.

Lesson 3 showed how hurtful carelessly applied labels are to a person suffering from neurosis. Labelling someone psychotic can be even more upsetting. People who are labelled psychotic are treated as psychotic and, therefore, continue to respond in psychotic ways. When the person is mislabelled psychotic, the results can be very damaging.

stigmaA stigma is a label associated with disgrace, dishonour, or shame. For example, someone serving time in jail, has a stigma. The stigma or sense of shame may also spread to the person’s family. For example, the parents are out of work, so the family is poor. Therefore, they require social assistance. That may be considered a stigma as well. Everyone in the family falls into the same negative category. Sometimes the stigma or mark of disgrace is justified because the person is truly evil or dangerous. Sometimes the person is saddled with a negative label not deserved.

From what has been said about society’s opinions about psychosis, psychological disturbances seem also to come under the cloud of a stigma. Because the misconception still exists that psychotics are evil and, therefore, deserve their situation, there is a tendency to punish those individuals more severely. The punisher does not sympathize or identify with the psychotic person. Another misconception is that the psychotic person is dangerous. A few psychotics must be guarded carefully, but many are nonviolent and calm. Most psychotics are more of a danger to themselves than they are to anyone else.

Can some of the severe forms of psychosis be cured? Perhaps many of them cannot be cured in the strictest sense, but they can be controlled with proper medication, counselling, and therapy. Approximately 70 to 80% of all mental patients can be released from institutions and satisfactorily adjust to normal life. However, their treatment must be monitored to ensure their progress toward mental health continues.

After identifying psychosis in very general terms, this lesson studies some of the specific forms of psychosis.