Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior that is inappropriate for a given situation. There may also be sleep problems, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, and difficulties carrying out daily activities. Psychosis can have serious adverse outcomes.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdrawal and flat affect. Symptoms typically develop gradually, begin during young adulthood, and in many cases are never resolved. There is no objective diagnostic test; diagnosis is based on observed behavior, a psychiatric history that includes the person's reported experiences, and reports of others familiar with the person. For a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the described symptoms need to have been present for at least six months or one month. Many people with schizophrenia have other mental disorders, especially substance use disorders, depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and obsessive–compulsive disorder.
Schizoaffective disorder is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal thought processes and an unstable mood. This diagnosis requires symptoms of both schizophrenia and a mood disorder: either bipolar disorder or depression. The main criterion is the presence of psychotic symptoms for at least two weeks without any mood symptoms. Schizoaffective disorder can often be misdiagnosed when the correct diagnosis may be psychotic depression, bipolar I disorder, schizophreniform disorder, or schizophrenia. This is a problem as treatment and prognosis differ greatly for most of these diagnoses.
Richard Bentall is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Sheffield in the UK.
Jim van Os is a Dutch academic and psychiatrist. He is Professor of Psychiatry and medical manager of the Brain Center at Utrecht University Medical Center, the Netherlands.
Sir Robin MacGregor Murray FRS is a Scottish psychiatrist, Professor of Psychiatric Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. He has treated patients with schizophrenia and bipolar illness referred to the National Psychosis Unit of the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust because they fail to respond to treatment, or cannot get appropriate treatment, locally; he sees patients privately if they are unable to obtain an NHS referral.
Risk factors of schizophrenia include many genetic and environmental phenomena. The prevailing model of schizophrenia is that of a special neurodevelopmental disorder with no precise boundary or single cause. Schizophrenia is thought to develop from very complex gene–environment interactions with vulnerability factors. The interactions of these risk factors are intricate, as numerous and diverse medical insults from conception to adulthood can be involved. The combination of genetic and environmental factors leads to deficits in the neural circuits that affect sensory input and cognitive functions. Historically, this theory has been broadly accepted but impossible to prove given ethical limitations. The first definitive proof that schizophrenia arises from multiple biological changes in the brain was recently established in human tissue grown from patient stem cells, where the complexity of disease was found to be "even more complex than currently accepted" due to cell-by-cell encoding of schizophrenia-related neuropathology.
Dual diagnosis is the condition of having a mental illness and a comorbid substance use disorder. There is considerable debate surrounding the appropriateness of using a single category for a heterogeneous group of individuals with complex needs and a varied range of problems. The concept can be used broadly, for example depression and alcohol use disorder, or it can be restricted to specify severe mental illness and substance use disorder, or a person who has a milder mental illness and a drug dependency, such as panic disorder or generalized anxiety disorder and is dependent on opioids. Diagnosing a primary psychiatric illness in people who use substances is challenging as substance use disorder itself often induces psychiatric symptoms, thus making it necessary to differentiate between substance induced and pre-existing mental illness.
Region Hovedstadens Psykiatri is a psychiatric hospital with centers spread all around the capital region of Denmark, mainly consisting of Copenhagen, northern Zealand, and Bornholm.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of deleterious mental conditions. These include various matters related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions.
Professor Thomas Lynch was the first Professor of Psychiatry at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). He was also the first to develop a psychiatric unit in a general hospital in the Republic of Ireland.
Barbara A. Cornblatt is Professor of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. She is known for her research on serious mental disorders, with a specific focus on psychosis and schizophrenia. Her efforts to find treatments to help youth with mental illness led to the development of the Recognition and Prevention Program, which she founded in 1998.
The long-term effects of cannabis have been the subject of ongoing debate. Because cannabis is illegal in most countries, clinical research presents a challenge and there is limited evidence from which to draw conclusions. In 2017, the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report summarizing much of the published literature on health effects of cannabis, into categories regarded as conclusive, substantial, moderate, limited and of no or insufficient evidence to support an association with a particular outcome.
Patrick Dennistoun McGorry FAA FASSA FAHMS FRCP FRANZCP is an Irish-born Australian psychiatrist known for his development of the early intervention services for emerging mental disorders in young people.
The National Psychosis Unit is a national treatment centre for patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, in the United Kingdom. The unit is a tertiary referral centre in the National Health Service. It is located at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. It is closely affiliated to the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and forms part of the Psychosis Clinical Academic Group of King's Health Partners.
The diagnosis of schizophrenia, a psychotic disorder, is based on criteria in either the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Clinical assessment of schizophrenia is carried out by a mental health professional based on observed behavior, reported experiences, and reports of others familiar with the person. Diagnosis is usually made by a psychiatrist. Associated symptoms occur along a continuum in the population and must reach a certain severity and level of impairment before a diagnosis is made. Schizophrenia has a prevalence rate of 0.3-0.7% in the United States
Glyn Lewis is a British professor of psychiatric epidemiology and the current head of the Division of Psychiatry at University College London
Celso Arango is a psychiatrist who has worked as a clinician, researcher, and educator in psychiatry and mental health, notably in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry, psychosis, and mental health promotion.
Louise Arseneault is a Canadian psychologist and Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, where she has taught since 2001.
St. John of God Hospital is an independent (private) psychiatric teaching hospital located in Stillorgan, Dublin, Ireland. The hospital is managed by the St. John of God Hospitaller Service Group, which is part of the international St. John of God Order that has more than 300 care centres in more than 50 countries. Hospitality, compassion, excellence, justice, and respect are the values of every centre of the St. John of God Order.
