Research on Psychosis

Before we planned for our film we had to research the history, symtoms and effects of pychosis. Here is some extracted information on what you would expect with a psychosis patient:

Psychosis is a term that is used to describe a mental condition where somebody is unable to distinguish between reality and their imagination. People who are experiencing psychosis are referred to a psychotic. People with psychosis often experience:
-hallucinations - hearing, or seeing, things that are not there, and
-delusions - believing things that are untrue.

Psychosis is more common that most people realise. It is estimated that 1 in every 200 people in the UK has experienced psychosis. Some people will only experience one psychotic episode, while others may experience a number of episodes throughout their life.

There are four main symptoms associated with a psychotic episode. These are:
-hallucinations,
-delusions,
-confused and disturbed thoughts
-a lack of insight and self-awareness
Hallucinations:
A hallucination is when you think you perceive something that does not exist in reality. Hallucinations can occur in all five of your senses as outlined below.
Sight - someone with psychosis may see colours and shapes, or imaginary people, or animals.
Sounds - someone with psychosis may hear voices that are angry, unpleasant, or sarcastic.
Touch - a common psychotic hallucination is that insects are crawling on the skin.
Smell - usually a strange, or unpleasant, smell.
Taste - some people with psychosis have complained of having a constant unpleasant taste in their mouth.

A delusion is having an unshakable belief in something that is implausible, bizarre or obviously untrue. There are two common types of psychotic delusion that are described below.
Paranoid delusion - a person with psychosis will often believe that an individual, or organisation, is making plans to hurt, or kill them, which in turn can lead to unusual behaviour. For example, a person with psychosis may refuse to be in the same room as a mobile phone because they believe they are actually mind-control devices.
Delusions
Delusions of grandeur - in this type of delusion, a person with psychosis believes that they have some imaginary power, or authority. For example, they may think they are president of a country, or that they have the power to bring people back from the dead.
Confusion of thought
People with psychosis often have disturbed, confused, and disrupted patterns of thought. Signs of this include:
their speech may be rapid and constant,
the content of their speech appears random; they may switch from one topic to another in mid-sentence, and
their train of thought may suddenly stop, resulting in an abrupt pause in conversation, or activity.
Lack of insight
People who are experiencing a psychotic episode often totally unaware that their behaviour is in any way strange, or that the delusions, or hallucinations, that they are experiencing could be imaginary.
They may be capable of recognising delusional, or bizarre, behaviour in others, but lack the self-awareness to recognise it themself. A person with psychosis who is being treated in a psychiatric ward will often complain that all of their fellow patients are mentally ill while they are perfectly normal.
Causes
The causes of psychosis have three main classifications:
psychosis caused by psychological conditions,
psychosis caused by general medical conditions, and
psychosis caused by substances, such as alcohol, or drugs
Psychosis is a symptom or feature of mental illness typically characterized by radical changes in personality, impaired functioning, and a distorted or non-existent sense of objective reality.
Disorganized speech. Psychotic patients, especially those with schizophrenia, often ramble on in incoherent, nonsensical speech patterns.
Disorganized or catatonic behavior. The catatonic patient reacts inappropriatelyto his environment by either remaining rigid and immobile or by engaging in excessive motor activity. Disorganized behavior is behavior or activity whichis inappropriate for the situation, or unpredictable. Read more

Main Sources:
http://www.faqs.org/health/topics/57/Psychosis.html
http://www.cks.nhs.uk/patient_information_leaflet/psychosis

This research was done to enable us to plan our film; making sure we include the correct effects of the illness (and extending them to get the realisation of horror from the viewer) and also as we didnt want to call the film something it did not relate to. We wanted the correct facts so we could plan the film according to this.