Psychosis is an acute state in which a person experiences hallucinations and delusions. It develops gradually and people suffer a huge deal from this disorder. There are a lot of reasons by psychosis takes place ranging from biological, genetic, and environmental factors. In this condition, people also experience extreme anxiety and depression as well as they tend to socially isolate themselves. There are problems in cognitive functioning and memory as well. Sometimes psychosis develops into a long-lasting mental health condition such as schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder etc.
There is no single cause for the development of psychosis, but it is a result of many factors. One may be genetically predisposed which may cause them to suffer from psychosis. The development is also dependent on the impact of adverse childhood experiences that one might have gone through. As these childhood experiences deeply affect a person, they are responsible for why someone develops psychosis later in life. These events also lead one to experience symptoms of other psychological conditions such as PTSD, depression, or anxiety conditions.
Addressing Aggression in Psychosis
It is extremely important to provide support and care to patients with psychosis because they are helpless during such a phase. Psychosis is a debilitating condition and sometimes during such period patients show aggression towards others or themselves which becomes difficult to handle. It usually begins in adolescence or early adulthood and here are some signs and symptoms that can help you catch an early onset of psychosis.
- The person starts to socially isolate themselves as they have thoughts of harm and negative attenuations attached to other people. They think others do not like them or even have some bizarre belief that they are going to murder them etc.
- The person starts to develop problems in maintaining good hygiene and care of themselves. They start to neglect themselves and require attention from other people. Disorganized thinking and speech: People experiencing it may have difficulty organizing their thoughts and expressing themselves coherently. Their speech may become disorganized, tangential, or incoherent, making it challenging to follow their conversations.
- Their cognitive ability falters, as they become more confused than before. They are not able to keep attention for a very long time. All these signs and symptoms correlate to the negative symptom of developing psychosis.
- They start to face the positive symptoms of psychosis such as they start to have delusions or false beliefs about things. They even experience some visual or audio hallucinations during this phase.
- Now people experience full-blown psychosis and are disconnected from reality. They become agitated and angry, and their delusions tend to become stronger while the frequency of audio or visual hallucinations also increases and they become more confused and are not able to understand what is real and what is false.
Even though the development of psychosis varies from one person to another these signs or symptoms are found common in all. Antipsychotics help to maintain the dysregulation of dopamine in the brain and many behavioral symptoms return to normal after taking the drug.
Trauma and Psychosis
During the condition, there is an extreme imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain, especially serotonin and dopamine. The hallucinations and delusions that patients face are sometimes related to their trauma. Thus, addressing trauma becomes important in dealing with psychosis and is used substantially in dealing with the condition. There are abnormal changes in some parts of the brain during psychosis such as the prefrontal cortex which deals with cognitive control and decision making. The hippocampus deals with memories and emotional regulation is altered.
