Posted by med_empowered on March 25, 2006, at 16:59:56
In reply to Are you psychotic or neurotic? How to tell...., posted by JaclinHyde on March 25, 2006, at 2:18:41
There are shades of grey between the two--at one point, a doc told me my super-high anxiety levels were due to a "subtle though disorder" which was dx'd as psychotic disorder nos--basically, the idea was that I had a low-level psychosis and still managed to function reasonably well (luckily for me, those problems have since ended). ANYWAY...point is: even seemingly "normal" people can have psychotic symptoms and even seemingly "crazed" people can have pretty good insight and ability to distinguish reality from fiction. The BIG question is about the level of functional impairment, which is determined more by the interplay of symptoms with surrounding than by either factor alone. Example: Some people who hear voices hear nice voices, which apparently enriches their lives. Assuming they can handle these hallucinations, they might be better off without treatment. ON the other hand...someone who isn't psychotic could be dealing with such severe anxiety or OCD or depression that they're effectively crippled in their day-to-day life. In that case, treatment might be desirable, even though there isn't any "psychosis".
poster:med_empowered
thread:624396
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060322/msgs/624570.html