Are Schizophrenia and Psychosis the same?

by **NotAlone** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:39 am

Well I have Psychosis, is it similar to Schizophrenia? I've just been diagnosed with it recently and the mental health people and my doctor are doing tests on me to see if I may have Schizophrenia or some other mental illness etc. I feel like I may have something that affected me for years probably since I was sexually molested as a child and other life events that could've caused it or how I was raised. Like I can't laugh even when I was little at sitcomes when people laugh at every little thing or just all in general, I was able to laugh at this one show I watched but not sure if it was real or not, maybe, don't know but I don't know if it has to do with my parents nationality. I will never know gotta go through intense therapy. I'd say I was born different from the rest of the people. Not everyone is perfect and I know I'm not but I do wish I could've been normal, oh and another thing I forgot to mention I also have depression don't know if it's Bi, Manic or not. Yeah that's all for now.

Yes and no... schizophrenia is a form of psychosis, but psychosis is not neccessarily schizophrenia.

Psychosis is a term used for a particular type of illness; you can get psychotic symptoms with depression, bipolar, OCD, Parkinson's, BPD, brief psychotic disorder, all sorts.

What tests are they doing? There isn't actually a test that will diagnose schizophrenia. Diagnosing schizophrenia usually means follwing the onset and development of the illness and if it matches the criteria for schizophrenia you end up with that diagnosis. There isn't a definitive test that will tell you whether or not you have it.

by **aries** » Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:49 pm

psychosis can be one symptom of schizophrenia (but isn't always present)...but they aren't the same thing.

by **NotAlone** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 12:23 am

Isme wrote:Yes and no... schizophrenia is a form of psychosis, but psychosis is not neccessarily schizophrenia.

Psychosis is a term used for a particular type of illness; you can get psychotic symptoms with depression, bipolar, OCD, Parkinson's, BPD, brief psychotic disorder, all sorts.

What tests are they doing? There isn't actually a test that will diagnose schizophrenia. Diagnosing schizophrenia usually means follwing the onset and development of the illness and if it matches the criteria for schizophrenia you end up with that diagnosis. There isn't a definitive test that will tell you whether or not you have it.

Okay I see well I go to a mental health clinic whenever I can by appointment so I'm getting help little by little. Maybe it was the depression that caused it and I do have some OCD behaivor. Thankyou for clearing that out the Schizophrenia and Psychosis differences. All I know is it does affect me with almost everything. How I think, behavior, and it will talk for me and be very manipulative but the meds have stopped some of the hallucinations and delusions but still got the voices but the auditory ones now and then I hear them. But yes it does take time. I'm guessing this didn't explain much but I felt like saying it anyways.

by **spiritual_emergency** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:22 pm

Not Alone: Well I have Psychosis, is it similar to Schizophrenia?

I'm inclined to think of schizophrenia as chronic psychosis. In other words, if you have one psychotic episode, a label that could be applied is "psychosis". If you have repeated psychotic episodes, a label that could be applied is "schizophrenia".

There are multiple causes of psychosis and schizophrenia, including that of trauma. You had mentioned a history of sexual molestation so you might find the following to be of interest...

Two psychiatric conferences in Europe have been told that child abuse can cause schizophrenia. The man behind the contentious theory, University of Manchester researcher Paul Hammersley, described his theory as "an earthquake" that will radically change the psychiatric profession. Working in conjunction with New Zealand clinical psychologist Dr John Read, Hammersley gathered evidence from 40 studies which revealed childhood or adulthood sexual or physical abuse in the history of the majority of psychiatric patients. Additionally, their review of 13 studies of schizophrenics found abuse rates from a low of 51 percent to a high of 97 percent.

"We are not returning to the 1960s and making the mistake of blaming families, but professionals have to realize that child abuse was a reality for large numbers of adult sufferers of psychosis," explained Hammersley. Hammersley and Read argue that two-thirds of people diagnosed as schizophrenic have suffered physical or sexual abuse, which they claim shows it to be a major - if not the major - cause of the illness. With a proven connection between the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, they say, many schizophrenic symptoms are actually caused by trauma.

Source: Trauma: The Major Cause of Schizophrenia?

See also: Models of Madness - Dr. John Read

Not Alone: still got the voices but the auditory ones now and then I hear them.

Voice hearers may find the following links to be of interest...

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Are Schizophrenia and Psychosis the same?

Are Schizophrenia and Psychosis the same?

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