Psychosis Disorder – Term Paper

Psychotic Disorder Case Study: Psychosis

Psychosis is a mental illness that affects the victim’s emotions and thinking pattern, that the contact with reality is entirely lost (National Institute for Clinical Excellence 5). Case studies are developed by psychologists to be able to diagnose and establish an intervention for mental disorders on clients. The paper shall focus on a psychosis victim case study, where the environment and other factors such as family history shall be probed as a cause of the illness.

Jane is a 19-year-old female who has recently exhibited abnormal behaviors and unending disturbances. She has been experiencing depressive symptoms since she turned 13 teen years. The begging of this year the same feeling got intensified which led to a restriction of food intake and as a result, she lost some weight and was also hospitalized after a case of excessive consumption of the sleeping pills. She was discharged and scheduled for counseling sessions, where she interacted with a therapist twice every week which contributed to some improvement.

Three months after the counseling sessions while at school she exhibited a severe episode of hallucination and was hospitalized. Jane sounded confused, disoriented and convinced that she had seen an angel and that the world was to come to an end as the angle came to warn them. Jane had seen the school nurse dressed in white which subsequently led to all these experiences and proclamation of the end of days. There are various types of hallucination which include visual and verbal hallucination. Jane’s behavior was a typical example of a person experiencing hallucinations based on visual agents. She also started saying that God had told her that she will be in heaven and has been permitted to select some of her friends to be granted a straight ticket without judgment. At home, she thought of herself as a fat person and students at the school were talking behind her back. The idea was made in her mind after a period of negative self-perception. Such thoughts made her case worse as it exacerbated the depressive condition.

Physical Environment

Jane was always at school or at home, where the trigger for her psychosis developed. She revealed some improvement once she was discharged from the healthcare facility, but worsened while at school. At school, Jane gets very little support with her condition as she is exposed to similar experiences as other students. For instance, it was noticed white cloths trigger her visual hallucinations, and there is no immediate support once she sets into one of her episodes. On the contrary, at home all white clothing is kept away and whenever the episodes start she receives crucial support to keep her in control.

Family history

Her grandmother in her mid-twenties experienced hallucinations and depressive behaviors. Some studies have linked heredity to the development of hallucinations which lead to depressions (Schmidt 10).  Jane elder brother in his teenage hood experienced some depression but was successful counseled and was able to lead a normal life without relapse. This association can be used to link her mental cases to have been inherited through her family lineage.

Conclusion

Psychotic disorder exposes victims a series of episodes that makes life unpleasant. The victims are vulnerable to physical as well as emotional harm. Jane was always experiencing psychotic symptoms which made her school and social life unbearable. The case study created could be used to trace the origin and triggers of the condition to come up with interventions.

Work cited

National Institute for Clinical Excellence. “Psychosis with Coexisting Substance Misuse:  Assessment and Management in Adults and Young People.” NICE Clinical  Guidelines 120 (2011).

Schmidt, Charles W. “Environmental Connections: a deeper look into mental        illness.” Environmental health perspectives 115.8 (2007): A404.