What is psychosis? What does it mean to be psychotic? That's what I'm going to talk
about in this video stay tuned. I'm Dr. Tracey Marks a psychiatrist and I
talk about mental health education and self-improvement if you want more of
this kind of information click Subscribe. Psychosis is simply a state where you're
unable to tell what's real and what's not real. The way that can look can take
many forms and I'm going to start out talking about hallucinations and
delusions. Let me start with hallucinations first. Hallucinations can
involve any of your five senses. There are auditory hallucinations where you
can hear things that aren't there. For example a person can hear their name
called. Now don't get too alarmed if this has happened to you if it's only
happened once it could easily just be a misperception of a real noise. Then there
are visual hallucinations these are seeing things that are not there you may
see spiders crawling up the wall for example. And this is not to be confused
with a visual misperception and here's a difference. With a misperception
there is something there you just may think it's something else.
Have you ever wakened in the middle of the night and looked across the room and
swore you saw someone sitting in the room. And after you pull yourself
together turn on the light you see that it's just a chair sitting up against the
wall but it's sitting in a way that made it look like a person. That would be an
illusion. The chair is actually there but you misperceived what it was. Moving on
Olfactory hallucinations this is where people can smell things that aren't
really there sometimes people with temporal lobe seizures can smell things
just before they have a seizure and for them it can serve as a warning signal
that a seizure is coming. Tactile hallucinations occur when you feel
things that aren't there. You may feel someone touching your skin or you can
feel the sensation that bugs are crawling on you for example. Lastly there
are gustatory hallucinations. This is where you taste something in the
absence of tasting something or it can happen when you eat something and the
taste doesn't make sense or match. An example of this would be believing that
everything you taste, tastes like feces. Now you may say well I'm a really bad cook
but even the worst spoiled food should not taste like fresh feces. Auditory
and visual hallucinations tend to be the most common in psychiatric illnesses. The
ones that involve feeling, smelling and taste, these tend to be more common in
medical illnesses like seizures or migraines or you can see it with
medication toxicities. So that's hallucinations what are
delusions? Delusions are fixed false beliefs and that's the textbook
definition. Another way of saying it is believing something false
despite facts that that say that it's not true or it being extremely unlikely
to be true. There are common themes or types of delusions.
There's persecutory delusions: these are when you believe that some entity is
against you in some way. For example you you believe you're being followed or
someone is watching your home. With referential delusions gestures have
certain meanings or you may you may get specific messages from this
television. There's grandiose delusions. An example of this is feeling that
you're famous and people just don't realize it Then there are religious
delusions and an example of this is believing that you are a deity or a
famous prophet in someone's religion. And the people in
that religion will believe that the deity isn't in physical existence at the
moment but you believe you're the existence. With somatic delusions you're
fixated that something is wrong with your body. An example of this would be
that someone has planted a chip in your head without you knowing about it. And
lastly there's delusions of control an example of this would be believing that
someone is controlling your mind or that others can control your mind. So who gets
psychotic? Of course we see this in psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder and even depression. But you don't have to have a psychiatric
disorder to become psychotic. You can become psychotic from medication effects
such as steroids. Ever hear the term steroid psychosis? Other common culprits
are illicit substances such as marijuana or hallucinogens like LSD. And psychosis
can also result from medical problems like seizures, thyroid disease or even
after a woman has a baby. So what do we do about this? Well you
treat the reason. If it's from a medical illness you treat that illness. If it's
from a psychiatric disorder you the treatment is medication. And sorry to say
that for the pill haters out there but someone just can't be talked down from
their delusions and their psychotic symptoms. So that's it for today thanks
for making it all the way through this video. You must be subscribed. But if
you're not, please do and until next time.