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Psychosis is a term used in the mental health field to refer to a mental state described as the loss of contact with reality. For people who suffer from psychosis, it is difficult to differentiate what is real from what is not. It is important to clarify that the term psychotic has no relation to the term psychopath. Although the two terms are often confused in pop culture, they are very different.
People suffering from psychosis may experience delusions and hallucinations, present drastic changes in personality, and disorganized thinking in general. These characteristics make it difficult to maintain social relationships, and in severe cases, create significant difficulties in daily life.
Many people have psychotic experiences in their lives due to physical or mental trauma without developing a psychotic disorder. Likewise, psychosis can appear as a consequence of a large number of diseases, such as Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Epilepsy.
Because personality changes, social isolation, paranoia, and periods of mental confusion and memory loss usually appear with other disorders or mental states, it is important to emphasize the two main characteristics of psychosis, which are hallucinations and delusions.
Hallucinations are defined as sensory perception with a lack of stimulation, which is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and even tasting things that are not there at that moment or that simply do not exist. Hallucinations are often vivid and described as uncontrollable.
Delusions are false ideas that have no basis in reality. Some delusions are quite common and affect a large part of the population. For example, many people believe they have a special power. What makes a delusion a characteristic of psychosis is the degree of severity and the way in which it affects a person’s functioning.
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