This was an incredible read. My brother had a psychotic break when I was 14 and my family still act like it was a freak incident with no environmental explanation. They ate up the psychiatrist’s explanation that it was all internal brain chemistry but the dynamic you described here sums up what life was like for him perfectly. I love the link made to the gentleman in Gaza. Your writing never fails to broaden my understanding of the mind. Thank youu!!!
Glad to hear that and unfortunately it is often the case that the psychiatric explanation reduces the patient to a malfunctioning brain. Thank you for reading!
I find this article’s depiction of psychosis to be sensationalist and dehumanising as someone with psychosis myself. People with psychosis are more likely to be on the receiving end of a crime than to commit one (due to not being able to defend themselves). This doesn’t negate that anything can happen when someone experiences an episode, especially in a case like this that is obviously extreme in both circumstances and outcome.
It's also important to highlight with the sexual hallucinations and delusions- this is usually in cases of sexual abuse. Your depiction could be interpreted that people experiencing psychosis are perverse.
I'm also unconvinced that it is only caregivers who shape expectations even within the imperial core (this is not at all to conflate the experience of Western privilege with this man living under the boot of the Israeli-American empire). What about schooling? Or the cultural environment? Or the political and economic structures?
I know that it's Substack and you're being poetic. But I just want you to know that wherever there is sensationalism like this, someone else pays the price in harassment, discrimination, and general stigma.
I’m glad you’ve shared this and thank you for reading! There’s is absolutely a plethora of conditions in the imperial core (poverty, addiction, housing, class and race discrimination, genetic predisposition, psychiatric treatment and mistreatment etc) that can culminate to produce psychosis or psychotic symptoms. I limited them in this essay to RD Laings cases and the potential colonial factors that may have caused the onset for the gentlemen to illustrate a sort of solidarity and point of connection. What I’ve written is, in the way any short essay will be, reductive. But nonetheless I wanted to share that link.
I described my experiences working with psychosis in the way I did, honest and particular, so as to not sugarcoat the realities of clinical psychosis which I have been told is infuriating. My understanding of it has been shaped my friends, family and patients and now similarly will again be further shaped by your comment - so thank you! I’m inclined to go back and edit portions of this piece after reading your reflections on it and I thank you for that.
Just a point to add on the end here - like all diagnoses, which are reductive by definition, the clinical definition and category of psychosis is not always helpful. Many misdiagnoses are made in this area and so when using the term I refer to the state I define in the piece and not necessarily the diagnosis. Perhaps I should have made that clearer.
Thank you so much for being so receptive to feedback- I wasn't expecting that! I think what's happened is that your article is approaching it very informed by your clinical background where it's just factual and certain things are taken for granted.
But there is a lot of stigma and misinformation out there (about the causes of psychosis- I'm very sceptical of the pharmaceutical overemphasis on genetics; about the potential to recover per se, notwithstanding factors like addictiveness of medication, medication discontinuation, continuing abuse etc). So what people take away from your article may differ based on their awareness and attitudes.
So while I agree that it is very important not to sugar-coat what can happen when someone experiences a psychotic break, at the same time I'm so happy that you are also receptive to feedback from my (admittedly quite combative) comment. Thank you so much! (By the way most of what I said is complemented by reading, but the point on sexual abuse is more of an anecdotal example- just for clarity. That kind of thing messes you up).
I think you’re absolutely right. A solely clinical experience of it does take certain things for granted. So much of it cannot be neatly defined the way I have implied in the essay because so much of the condition is individualised and, as you suggested, a result of the unique environmental composition of one’s life history.
This was an incredible read. My brother had a psychotic break when I was 14 and my family still act like it was a freak incident with no environmental explanation. They ate up the psychiatrist’s explanation that it was all internal brain chemistry but the dynamic you described here sums up what life was like for him perfectly. I love the link made to the gentleman in Gaza. Your writing never fails to broaden my understanding of the mind. Thank youu!!!
Glad to hear that and unfortunately it is often the case that the psychiatric explanation reduces the patient to a malfunctioning brain. Thank you for reading!
I find this article’s depiction of psychosis to be sensationalist and dehumanising as someone with psychosis myself. People with psychosis are more likely to be on the receiving end of a crime than to commit one (due to not being able to defend themselves). This doesn’t negate that anything can happen when someone experiences an episode, especially in a case like this that is obviously extreme in both circumstances and outcome.
It's also important to highlight with the sexual hallucinations and delusions- this is usually in cases of sexual abuse. Your depiction could be interpreted that people experiencing psychosis are perverse.
I'm also unconvinced that it is only caregivers who shape expectations even within the imperial core (this is not at all to conflate the experience of Western privilege with this man living under the boot of the Israeli-American empire). What about schooling? Or the cultural environment? Or the political and economic structures?
I know that it's Substack and you're being poetic. But I just want you to know that wherever there is sensationalism like this, someone else pays the price in harassment, discrimination, and general stigma.
I’m glad you’ve shared this and thank you for reading! There’s is absolutely a plethora of conditions in the imperial core (poverty, addiction, housing, class and race discrimination, genetic predisposition, psychiatric treatment and mistreatment etc) that can culminate to produce psychosis or psychotic symptoms. I limited them in this essay to RD Laings cases and the potential colonial factors that may have caused the onset for the gentlemen to illustrate a sort of solidarity and point of connection. What I’ve written is, in the way any short essay will be, reductive. But nonetheless I wanted to share that link.
I described my experiences working with psychosis in the way I did, honest and particular, so as to not sugarcoat the realities of clinical psychosis which I have been told is infuriating. My understanding of it has been shaped my friends, family and patients and now similarly will again be further shaped by your comment - so thank you! I’m inclined to go back and edit portions of this piece after reading your reflections on it and I thank you for that.
Just a point to add on the end here - like all diagnoses, which are reductive by definition, the clinical definition and category of psychosis is not always helpful. Many misdiagnoses are made in this area and so when using the term I refer to the state I define in the piece and not necessarily the diagnosis. Perhaps I should have made that clearer.
Thank you so much for being so receptive to feedback- I wasn't expecting that! I think what's happened is that your article is approaching it very informed by your clinical background where it's just factual and certain things are taken for granted.
But there is a lot of stigma and misinformation out there (about the causes of psychosis- I'm very sceptical of the pharmaceutical overemphasis on genetics; about the potential to recover per se, notwithstanding factors like addictiveness of medication, medication discontinuation, continuing abuse etc). So what people take away from your article may differ based on their awareness and attitudes.
So while I agree that it is very important not to sugar-coat what can happen when someone experiences a psychotic break, at the same time I'm so happy that you are also receptive to feedback from my (admittedly quite combative) comment. Thank you so much! (By the way most of what I said is complemented by reading, but the point on sexual abuse is more of an anecdotal example- just for clarity. That kind of thing messes you up).
I think you’re absolutely right. A solely clinical experience of it does take certain things for granted. So much of it cannot be neatly defined the way I have implied in the essay because so much of the condition is individualised and, as you suggested, a result of the unique environmental composition of one’s life history.