Psychosis is disconnection from reality. People may have false beliefs or experience things that aren’t real. Psychosis isn’t a condition. It’s a term that describes a collection of symptoms.
Two important types of psychosis include:
- Hallucinations. These are when parts of your brain mistakenly act like they would if your senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste) picked up on something actually happening. An example of a hallucination is hearing voices that aren’t there (auditory hallucination).
- Delusions. These are false beliefs that someone holds onto very strongly, even when others don’t believe them or there’s plenty of evidence that a belief isn’t true. For example, people with delusions of control believe someone is controlling their thoughts or actions remotely.
Possible Causes
What are the most common causes of psychosis?
Psychosis is a common symptom of many mental health conditions. The America Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) has an entire category devoted to these conditions.
This category, “Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders,” includes the following conditions:
- Schizophrenia.
- Brief psychotic disorder.
- Delusion Disorder.
- Schizoaffective disorder.
- Schizophreniform disorder.
- Schizotypal (personality) disorder.
- Substance/medication-induced psychotic disorder.
- Psychotic disorder due to another medical condition.
Psychosis can also happen with certain types of mood disorders. Those include:
- Bipolar Disorder.
- Major Depression and related conditions.
Medical conditions that can cause psychosis
Psychosis can also happen because of a wide range of other conditions that affect your brain and body. These include:
- Alzheimer’s disease and other types of Dementia.
- Hormone-related conditions like Addison’s disease and Cushing’s disease, and when your thyroid gland is too active or not active enough.
- Infections of your brain or spinal cord (encephalitis or meningitis).
- Lupus.
- Lyme disease.
- Multiple sclerosis.
- Postpartum psychosis (a rare, severe mental health emergency related to postpartum depression).
- Stroke and other neurological (brain-related) conditions.
- Vitamin B1 (thiamine) and vitamin B12 deficiencies.
Other causes of psychosis
Psychosis, or symptoms that look very much like it, can also happen under other circumstances. The causes will seem more like triggers in some cases because psychosis develops quickly. In others, it may be a slow process. Some of the circumstances or factors that can cause psychosis include:
- Misuse of alcohol, prescription medications or recreational drugs (the disorder mentioned above is when this lasts for a longer period).
- Severe head injuries (concussions and traumatic brain injuries).
- Traumatic experiences (past or present).
- Unusually high levels of stress or anxiety.