Psychosis Outside the Box: A User-Led Project to Amplify the Diversity and Richness of Experiences Described as Psychosis.
Shannon Pagdon, Nev Jones
Psychiatric Services December 7, 2022 DOI: 10.1176/appi.ps.20220488 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Commentary Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Humans Emotions Psychotic disorders Psychoses Lived experience |
| Key points | Argues that excluding people with lived experience of psychosis from clinical training and knowledge production skews concepts of psychosis toward second- and third-person observations, and proposes the Psychosis Outside the Box project to collect and amplify first-person accounts of visuals, felt presences, altered time and space, and "negative symptoms." |
Abstract
Despite some progress toward greater inclusion, individuals with personal experience of psychosis are rarely integrated into the training of clinicians or knowledge generation. Their exclusion increases the risk that dominant ways of conceptualizing psychosis primarily reflect second- and third-person observations rather than first-person experiences. Observed only from the outside, the richness, complexity, and depth of experiences falling under the psychosis umbrella are easily lost. The authors describe a project-Psychosis Outside the Box-to solicit, compile, and amplify direct accounts of experiences that have been neglected in mainstream research and pedagogy, including the subjective experiences of visuals, felt presences, alterations of time and space, and "negative symptoms."