Psychotic Break: Causes, Symptoms And Treatment

There are different factors that can cause a psychotic break to occur in a person. The main causes of a psychotic break are the following:

• Biological factors: when the person has a brain alteration or does not produce a sufficient amount of neurotransmitters to have greater psychological balance. This may occur due to excessive drug consumption or experiencing continuous and intense stress.
• Psychological factors: Psychotic breaks may appear more commonly in people who present certain personality traits such as, for example, schizotypal, schizoid and/or paranoid traits.

Differences between schizophrenia and a psychotic break

To understand the difference between these two mental disorders you have to learn what they are. Do you know what a psychotic break is? A break with reality that produces delusions and hallucinations temporarily. At that moment the person does not distinguish what is real from what is fantasy. Everything he sees or hears in the form of a hallucination he considers authentic, as if it were really happening.

On the other hand, schizophrenia is a large set of symptoms in which psychotic outbreaks stand out, however, it is a more stable disease over time and with a more complicated treatment. In this article you will find more information about schizophrenia: definition, causes, course and treatment.

If you want to know more, don’t miss this article on the differences between psychosis and schizophrenia.

How does a psychotic break manifest? When a person has a psychotic break, they present a series of characteristic signs. The main symptoms of a psychotic break are:

• hallucinations: the person can see, hear, feel and smell things that are clearly not present in reality. Generally, the hallucinations that people with a psychotic break experience most are auditory ones, for example, hearing voices telling them what to do or even having the sensation of hearing voices saying things that make no sense. The least common hallucinations are visual ones and, in some cases, the person may have hallucinations that involve several senses.
• Delusions: the person begins to imagine events or situations and confuse them with reality. For example, he may have the belief at some point that he is a fugitive from justice and that he is being pursued by the police, so he has to be hiding so that they will not find him.
• Disorganized language and thinking: How does a person with psychosis behave? You tend to have incoherent thoughts continuously and without real meaning. They tend to move quickly from one thought to another, making it impossible for them to concentrate when having a conversation with someone. Because of this, their language also becomes disorganized and incoherent, saying things that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic being discussed.
• Catatonic or disorganized behavior: Another symptom of a psychotic break is that people interact inappropriately with their environment. For example, they may become immobile or extremely rigid or, on the contrary, they may act impulsively and increase their motor activity excessively in an unpredictable manner.

One of the main doubts when faced with an episode of psychosis is knowing how to treat it. First of all, we must keep in mind that the treatment of a psychotic break is as follows:

• Psychiatric treatment: Antipsychotic drugs are often essential to treat psychosis.
• Psychological Support: as we have mentioned previously, the causes of the psychotic outbreak are usually psychological, so if we use the appropriate therapies, we can prevent future episodes of psychosis
• Help from the environment: the social context is a good tool to be able to help that person who has suffered a psychotic break. First of all, it is necessary that the patient has the enough social support to improve your condition and prognosis of the mental disorder you present.

How to act in the event of a psychotic break

When a person has a psychotic break, the first thing to do is take it to a professional and that it determines if the outbreak has been induced, because it is a medical illness, or due to having consumed some substance or drug that could have influenced it.

It is necessary to subject the person to a comprehensive neurological and physical examination so that the professional can also determine with more certainty if it is a possible situation, caused by other types of factors, or if the person suffers from a psychotic disorder.

Treatment for psychosis and the consequences of the psychotic outbreak, especially when the person already has a psychotic disorder, must combine drugs and psychological therapy. The drugs will be responsible for eliminating the symptoms of psychosis and psychological therapy, individually and even at the family level, helps people close to the patient know how to deal with this situation and how to help their family member reduce relapses.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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