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British Journal of Psychiatry

ISSN 0007-1250

25 papers in the library · 229 citations · publishing 1963-2025

Papers

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Maladaptive daydreaming should be included as a dissociative disorder in psychiatric manuals: position paper

British Journal of Psychiatry March 17, 2025 Nirit Soffer-Dudek, Eli Somer, David Spiegel et al.

Maladaptive daydreaming is a distinct syndrome in which the main symptom is excessive vivid fantasising that causes clinically significant distress and functional impairment in academic, vocational and social domains. Unlike normal daydreaming, maladaptive daydreaming is persistent, compulsive and detrimental to one’s life. It involves detachment from reality in favour of intense emotional...

Psychosis associated with cannabis withdrawal: systematic review and case series

British Journal of Psychiatry December 3, 2024 Edward Chesney, Thomas J. Reilly, Fraser Scott et al.

Background Abrupt cessation of heavy cannabis use can cause a withdrawal syndrome characterised by irritability, anxiety, insomnia, reduced appetite and restlessness. Recent reports have also described people in whom cannabis withdrawal immediately preceded the acute onset of psychosis. Aims To identify cases of psychosis associated with cannabis withdrawal. Method We completed a systematic...

Association of volatile substance, nitrous oxide and alkyl nitrate use with mental health in UK adolescents

British Journal of Psychiatry October 14, 2024 Jemma Hawkins, Lindsey A. Hines, Chris Bonell et al.

Background ‘Inhalants’ have been associated with poorer mental health in adolescence, but little is known of associations with specific types of inhalants. Aims We aimed to investigate associations of using volatile substances, nitrous oxide and alkyl nitrates with mental health problems in adolescence. Method We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using data from 13- to 14-year-old...

Efficacy and safety of a 4-week course of repeated subcutaneous ketamine injections for treatment-resistant depression (KADS study): randomised double-blind active-controlled trial

British Journal of Psychiatry July 14, 2023 Colleen Loo, N. Glozier, David Barton et al. 70 citations

Background Prior trials suggest that intravenous racemic ketamine is a highly effective for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), but phase 3 trials of racemic ketamine are needed. Aims To assess the acute efficacy and safety of a 4-week course of subcutaneous racemic ketamine in participants with TRD. Trial registration: ACTRN12616001096448 at www.anzctr.org.au. Method This phase 3,...

Effects of Sahaj Samadhi meditation on heart rate variability and depressive symptoms in patients with late-life depression – RETRACTION

British Journal of Psychiatry May 25, 2021 Emily Ionson, Jayneel Limbachia, Soham Rej et al.

We, the Editors of BJPsych, have retracted the following article: Effects of Sahaj Samadhi meditation on heart rate variability and depressive symptoms in patients with late-life depression, Ionson, E., Limbachia, J., Rej, S., Puka, K., Newman, R. I., Wetmore, S., Burhan, A. M. and Vasudev, A, The British Journal of Psychiatry (2019), Cambridge University Press, 214(4), pp. 218–224. DOI:...

The Trials of Psychedelic Therapy: LSD Psychotherapy in America By Matthew Dram Johns Hopkins University Press. 2018. 288 pp. £33.30 (hb). ISBN 9781421426204.

British Journal of Psychiatry July 10, 2019 B. Sessa 1 citation

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Psychotic symptom and cannabis relapse in recent-onset psychosis

British Journal of Psychiatry August 1, 2006 L. Hides, S. Dawe, D. J. Kavanagh et al.

BackgroundCannabis use appears to exacerbate psychotic symptoms and increase risk of psychotic relapse. However, the relative contribution of cannabis use compared with other risk factors is unclear. The influence of psychotic symptoms on cannabis use has received little attention.AimsTo examine the influence of cannabis use on psychotic symptom relapse and the influence of psychotic symptom...

A role for psychedelics in psychiatry?

British Journal of Psychiatry November 1, 2005 G. Edwards

Grof (1975Grof ( , 1990) ) has been the most Grof (1975Grof ( , 1990) ) has been the most prominent explorer of these inaccessible prominent explorer of these inaccessible regions for over 40 years and once research regions for over 40 years and once research into lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) into lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) became impossible, developed a technique became impossible,...

Psychosis and Cannabis Abuse in the Gambia

British Journal of Psychiatry December 1, 1993 M. Rolfe, C. M. Tang, S. Sabally et al.

Cannabis abuse is a major public health problem in The Gambia and other parts of West Africa, and the rise in the incidence of psychotic illness reflects the increased background use of cannabis by the local population. A case-control study was performed to determine the association between psychosis and cannabis abuse in The Gambia and the importance of other risk factors. Out of 234 patients...

Altered state of consciousness in a compulsive water drinker

British Journal of Psychiatry 1989

A relatively normal 16-year-old Chinese woman with a six-month history of compulsive water drinking resulting in a comatose state is reported. The drinking was perpetuated by an enjoyable altered state of consciousness after ingestion of an average of 20 litres of water per day. Treatment by fluid restriction and, later, simple education was successful. The subjective dimension of an altered...

The Phenomenology of Acute Organic Psychosis

British Journal of Psychiatry September 1, 1987 J. Cutting 137 citations

The psychopathology of acute organic psychosis was investigated by interviewing 74 patients using the Present State Examination (PSE). Their delusions, perceptual disturbance, thought disorder, and emotional disorder were categorised and then compared with those seen in 74 acute schizophrenics. In acute organic psychosis there was a particular pattern to the delusions, perceptual disturbance,...

Consciousness, Information Processing and Schizophrenia

British Journal of Psychiatry March 1, 1979 C. D. Frith

SummaryThe symptoms of schizophrenia can be interpreted as the result of a defect in the mechanism that controls and limits the contents of consciousness. This defect can be understood as excessive self-awareness. Normally most of the complex information processing which is continuously required by even simple acts of perception, language and thought goes on below the level of awareness;...

Sleeping Pills and Dream Content

British Journal of Psychiatry June 1, 1974 Hugh Firth

Almost all sleep-promoting drugs distort the natural pattern of sleep by suppressing rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, and cause a rebound to above-normal values on withdrawal which typically lasts about six weeks (Oswald, 1968, 1969). Furthermore, barbiturates reduce the number of eye movementsper unit timein REM sleep (Oswaldet al., 1963; Baekeland, 1967; Lesteret al., 1968; Feinberget al.,...

A Clinical Study of Hypnagogic Hallucinations

British Journal of Psychiatry May 1, 1971 Carrick McDonald

Hypnagogic hallucinations are well established in text books of psychiatry, as also are hypnopompic hallucinations. Hypnagogic hallucinations are those which occur as the subject falls asleep and prevent him falling into a sound sleep, whereas hypnopompic hallucinations occur when the subject is waking up. Since by definition hypnagogic hallucinations actually waken the subject, the distinction...

Depersonalization Phenomena in Psychiatric Patients

British Journal of Psychiatry November 1, 1970 Rima Brauer, Martin Harrow, Gary J. Tucker

The complaints, ‘I am a stranger to myself; I am unreal’, are manifestations of depersonalization which have been noted frequently by clinicians. Depersonalization has been reported in epilepsy, after drug ingestion, encephalitis, hysteria, manic depression, and schizophrenia, as well as in various neurotic patients. It has also been noted in normals, but usually after emotional shock or...

Theories of Depersonalization: A Re-appraisal

British Journal of Psychiatry July 1, 1970 G. Sedman

Introduction There have been many theories put forward to explain the not uncommon symptoms of depersonalization. They were aptly summarized by Ackner (1954) in the following way. There are theories which regard depersonalization as a symptom with an organic basis; there are theories which consider it a disturbance of a particular psychological function; there are analytic theories; and finally...

LSD: 1967

British Journal of Psychiatry October 1, 1968 Glin Bennet

It is twenty years since the appearance of Stoll's paper: “Lysergic acid diethylamide, a hallucinatory agent of the ergot group” (23). In this he sought to reproduce in a group of subjects Hofmann's personal experiences of the drug, and so set the LSD snowball on its way. Some 1,500 papers must by now have been gathered to it; they deal with a greater range of uses than has been thought of for...

A Phenomenological Test of a Theory of Depersonalization

British Journal of Psychiatry June 1, 1967 N. L. Gittleson

The view that depersonalization experiences can “be regarded as occupying a position somewhere between the delusional and the non-delusional” was first suggested by Ackner (1954) who gave as an example the depressive's experience of malaise. If this is accepted into the normal framework of experience it will be attributed to illness or fatigue. If it is accepted and organized into a delusional...

Depersonalization in a Group of Normal Subjects

British Journal of Psychiatry September 1, 1966 G. Sedman

There have been relatively few studies concerning the occurrence of depersonalization phenomena in normal subjects. Roberts (1960) and Dixon (1963) studied college students and reported a high incidence of brief depersonalization experiences in their samples. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between depersonalization, the conditions under which it occurred and a...

Episodic Depersonalization

British Journal of Psychiatry July 1, 1964 K. Davison

The constellation of symptoms which is termed depersonalization is often as perplexing to the doctor as to the patient. It is more easily diagnosed than defined, and much of the controversy over its nosological position can be attributed to this vagueness of outline. Saperstein (1949) reviewed the historical development of the concept and concluded that the essential feature is the experience...

Experimental Modification of Dream Content by Meaningful Verbal Stimuli

British Journal of Psychiatry November 1, 1963 Ralph J. Berger

Numerous recent electroencephalographic studies have revealed the cyclical alternation of two distinct types of sleep (Dement and Kleitman, 1957a), which have been termed “fore-brain” and “hind-brain” sleep by Jouvet (1962). The former is accompanied by slow waves and spindles in the electroencephalogram (EEG) and the latter by a low-voltage, fairly fast EEG pattern; spasmodic, conjugate rapid...

Depersonalization Phenomena in a Sample Population of College Students

British Journal of Psychiatry May 1, 1963 J. C. Dixon

Depersonalization has been so frequently reported in connection with incipient schizophrenia that some diagnosticians have regarded it as a pathognomonic sign of schizophrenia. More generally, however, it is regarded as a non-specific psychiatric syndrome since it has been reported in a variety of psychotic, neurotic and neurological disturbances (Ackner, 1954).

Permissive Group Therapy with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide

British Journal of Psychiatry 1963 A. M. Spencer 21 citations

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has been used at Powick Hospital since 1952. During the early years of the treatment it became apparent that many of the dramatic psychic manifestations of the drug, including the vivid hallucinatory experiences, sensory hyperacuity, etc., were of no therapeutic value and that the chief use of the drug lay in its ability to bring into consciousness repressed...