PsychosisOctober 13, 2026Abigail Stancheva, Kay Gannon, Oisín O'Sullivan et al.
Background Recent research has examined embodied emotions in psychotic disorders. The aim of this study was to investigate how embodiment, emotional responses and meaning-making interacted during a simulation of Auditory Hallucinations in a virtual reality environment (sAH-VR).Methods This qualitative experimental study explored embodiment and its relationship to a sAH-VR task within a...
Background This first-person account develops Clouded Conscious-ness Theory (CCT) as a modest formulation lens for psychosis: a way of describing how reality may become organised from within when salience, threat, emotion, memory, and symbolic meaning interact.Approach I draw on personal experiences in which ordinary events stopped feeling neutral and arrived as messages, accusations, warnings,...
Felt presence (FP) involves sensing another social entity nearby without clear, corresponding evidence. Characteristics of FP depend on context. Previous work suggests FP is meaningful and welcomed in spiritual practice, but in psychotic-like states, FPs are intrusive, distressing, and intense. However, real-world contexts are rarely so discrete. A total of 337 participants completed an...
ABSTRACT Background Academic conceptualizations of psychosis often overlook its transformational potential. By situating it against a horizon of influential theoretical and conceptual models of psychosis including such integrative paradigms as the biopsychosocial model, this paper outlines American integral theorist Ken Wilber’s four-quadrant framework. Methods By drawing on several of Wilber’s...
ABSTRACT Background: Cannabis consumption is common among young adults with First Episode Psychosis (FEP). Mental health professionals tend to discourage its use due to concerns around symptom exacerbation and negative social outcomes. However, young adults report using cannabis for social and relational enhancement purposes. This study investigates the social aspects of cannabis use in service...
ABSTRACT Background Trauma and other adverse social experiences have been hypothesised to lead to psychotic-like experiences through disrupted attachment and dissociation. Although well grounded in the literature, the model is still to be fully validated. Methods This study tested the predictive validity of the Trauma and Social Pathways model of Psychosis, using a cross-sectional, quantitative...
Background: Non-clinical voice-hearers (NCVHs) have been the subject of a growing body of psychological research, a primary aim of which is the development of new therapeutic techniques to support those who struggle with voice-hearing. However, relatively little research has examined non-clinical voice-hearing experiences beyond their relationship with clinical voice-hearing. Methods: The...
ABSTRACT Background and Method Research has shown that psychotic illness is more prevalent in frequent cannabis users, even though many people enjoy cannabis recreationally without major concerns. Therefore, understanding what creates vulnerability for dangerous cannabis use patterns and psychosis is of major importance. Result Psychological risk factors such as exposure to trauma/adversity and...
Background The content of auditory hallucinations (AHs) and delusions is malleable and reflects the social environment and the local culture. COVID-19 is a significant new feature of the social environment, yet research has not yet determined how the phenomenology of psychosis has changed since the COVID-19 outbreak.Methods Adult patients (N = 17) receiving care within an acute inpatient...
ABSTRACT Background Youth in First Episode Psychosis (FEP) programs have high rates of cannabis use and consumption is associated with negative treatment outcomes. Motivations for use in this group are under-studied and investigating reasons for use can aid in the development of engagement strategies. Methods This scoping review uses the framework proposed by Arksey & O’Malley and PRISMA ScR to...
Cannabis use can increase severity of symptoms and risk of relapse for people with psychosis. Childhood sexual abuse and high schizotypy increase the risk further. The mechanisms involved remain unclear, and this limits psychological therapies. In three linked studies, we examined the role of two candidate mechanisms – external attribution and cognitive fusion. Study 1 examined these processes...
ABSTRACT Reductionist models of schizophrenia and psychosis have been criticized for neglecting first person experiences of these conditions. In response, at least two distinct bodies of research have emerged which study first person experience: philosophical phenomenology and approaches linked with the recovery movement. Phenomenological writings have produced a conceptual model of...
The current study sought to assess and compare the frequency of psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and the associated levels of distress across three groups (adolescent community, sexual-trauma survivors, and a clinical group of participants with serious mental health problems). Participants completed a revised version of the adolescent psychotic-like symptom screener (APSS) that was adapted to...
Purpose Over the past twenty years, few empirical studies have focused on manifestations of sex, sexual identity, and gender within the phenomenology of psychosis. The goal of the present analysis was to explore themes related to gender and sexuality among individuals diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. Methods We conducted a qualitative analysis of 25 in-depth phenomenological interviews and...
Mounting evidence has indicated that early intervention leads to improved clinical and functional outcomes for young persons experiencing recent onset psychosis. As part of a large early detection campaign, the present study aimed to investigate subjective experiences during the duration of untreated psychosis (DUP), or time between psychosis onset and treatment contact. Participants were 10...
To advance the area of phenomenology of voices and their interrelatedness to forms of delusions this study investigated the prevalence and interrelatedness of co-occurring auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) and delusions. Additionally we explored the characterization of distinct sub-categories/clusters of AVHs and delusions. Ninety-two participants experiencing psychosis were administered...
Background: Phenomenological descriptions of psychosis traditionally emphasize the subjective burden that psychosis inflicts on patients. However, a growing body of work suggests that in a subgroup of patients, psychotic symptoms are appraised as positive. The present study set out to explore the frequency of positive, negative and ambivalent attitudes towards positive symptoms. We were also...
PsychosisAugust 25, 2011Michael D. H. Robbins2 citations
Primordial mental activity (PMA) is a normal way that mind works both in learning and expression that is qualitatively different from rational realistic self-reflective thought. It appears to have a distinctive neurological circuitry and to be present from the onset of life. It is driven by somatic sensation and affect, it is enactive and concrete, holistic and de-centered, and produces states...