Working with Psychosis

According to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) website:

“Psychosis is when people lose some contact with reality. This might involve seeing or hearing things that other people cannot see or hear (hallucinations) and believing things that are not actually true (delusions).

The 2 main symptoms of psychosis are:

• hallucinations – where a person hears, sees and, in some cases, feels, smells or tastes things that do not exist outside their mind but can feel very real to the person affected by them; a common hallucination is hearing voices

• delusions – where a person has strong beliefs that are not shared by others; a common delusion is someone believing there's a conspiracy to harm them

The combination of hallucinations and delusional thinking can cause severe distress and a change in behaviour.

Experiencing the symptoms of psychosis is often referred to as having a psychotic episode.”

These are just a few of the symptoms and these can be wide-ranging in severity.

Common causes of psychosis include mental health conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

On the surface people with psychosis may appear fine but often people can suffer with Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder), which can make diagnosis difficult.

We recommend that you do not work with prospective clients with any indication of any type of psychosis. Any intervention should be left to qualified medical professionals.