The British Psychological Association released a remarkable document entitled “Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia.” Its authors say that hearing voices and feeling paranoid are common experiences, and are often a reaction to trauma, abuse or deprivation: “Calling them symptoms of mental illness, psychosis or schizophrenia is only one way of thinking about them, with advantages and disadvantages.”
The report says that there is no strict dividing line between psychosis and normal experience: “Some people find it useful to think of themselves as having an illness. Others prefer to think of their problems as, for example, an aspect of their personality which sometimes gets them into trouble but which they would not want to be without.”
From The New York Times
I found it helpful in some cases to “work with” delusions and auditory hallucinations.
Often delusions and auditory hallucinations can be a patient’s best attempt at dealing with a brittle sense of self.
The continuum from ideas of reference to auditory hallucinations and delusions.
The sharp dip into visual hallucination.
My work with Zeke
