What is “Psychosis”? A Hypothesis and Psycho-social Implications of the Condition

The author has asked to remain anonymous and has asked readers to please note, this article is not advice.

There are different hypotheses about what psychosis is.  One hypothesis that has been repeatedly disproven is that of the medical model belief that psychosis is a medical abnormality of the brain.  According to E. Fuller Torrey, a psychiatric researcher and author of Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual, “schizophrenia” is a brain disease. “Evidence” he cites for this belief is that people with “schizophrenia” commonly have enlargement of the ventricles and reduced grey matter volume. He states that “Ventricular enlargement was clearly described two decades prior to the introduction of antipsychotics, using a research technique in which air replaced the fluid in the ventricles,”[i] and that therefore ventricular enlargement could not be caused by neuroleptics. He also states that “white matter volume loss has also been observed….”[ii] However, Torrey does not control for other variables. For example, enlarged ventricles are also caused by alcohol consumption and marijuana use, both of which existed before the invention of neuroleptics. It is also of note that alcohol and marijuana cause psychosis and moreover, people with “psychosis” are more likely to use alcohol and marijuana as stress reducing techniques. According to the article, The Impact of Substance Use on Brain Structure in People at High Risk of Developing Schizophrenia by Killian A Welch et al.: “Ventricular enlargement and reduced prefrontal volume are consistent findings in schizophrenia. Both are present in first episode subjects and may be detectable before the onset of clinical disorder. Substance misuse is more common in people with schizophrenia and is associated with similar brain abnormalities.”[iii] Therefore, the logical explanation is that drug misuse caused ventricular enlargement in people with “schizophrenia,” not the “schizophrenia” itself.

Likewise, grey matter volume loss can be caused by smoking and because smoking calms people and counters some of the effects of neuroleptics more people with schizophrenia are likely to smoke. According to the Pub Med article Smoking and schizophrenia by Marina Sagud et al.,

“More than 60% of schizophrenic patients are current smokers….”[iv] Moreover according to a study published by National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Evidence for white matter abnormalities in schizophrenia byMarek Kubicki et al., “Only a small number of MRI studies have evaluated white matter volume differences between patients with schizophrenia and controls, and these studies have been largely negative.”[v] Furthermore, the findings Torrey mentions do not exist in a majority of people labelled “schizophrenic.”

Torrey also states that evidence that “schizophrenia” is genetic is the fact that children with “schizophrenic” mothers are 9 times more likely to develop “schizophrenia.” However, he doesn’t control for environmental factors. If a child’s mother has “schizophrenia” then the mother is likely to have been and still be exposed to neuroleptic drugs and this would affect the brain of the unborn child. It is known that neuroleptics make people more susceptible to psychosis, i.e. Dopamine Supersensitivity Psychosis and Tardive Psychosis—see Peter Breggin’s Toxic Psychiatry. Moreover, people labelled with “schizophrenia” have traumatic lives due to discrimination and the abuse inflicted on them by psychiatry; the distress and trauma this causes the parent could easily distress and traumatize the child as well and this can lead to psychosis. To give an example, having their parent taken away by police, and likely aggressively so, and locked up in a psych ward and witnessing the terrible effects of the drugs on their parent would be extremely traumatic for a child to experience.

Torrey also says that the risk of developing “schizophrenia” from childhood abuse is “so small”[vi] that it is “not very important.”[vii] However, according to NCBI article Childhood trauma and psychosis – what is the evidence? by Ingo Schäfer, MD, MPH, “….a substantial number of population based studies suggested that… a history of abuse was related to psychotic symptoms and/or the diagnosis of a psychotic disorder either during adolescence or adulthood.”[viii]”[ix] .Also, according to the article, Prevalence of self-reported childhood abuse in psychosis: A meta-analysis of retrospective studies, published in Psychiatry Research, by Ilaria Bonoldi et al., “There is extensive clinical literature reporting traumatic childhood experiences in patients with psychosis.” and “It is our opinion that clinicians should be trained and skilled to carefully investigate childhood abuse in psychosis.”

Torrey also says that “…people with schizophrenia are thought to have elevated levels of dopamine.”[x]However, it has been long since proven that this is not the case. According to an article in Harvard Review of Psychiatry:

“The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia and psychosis originated from observations of the dopamine-blocking actions of early neuroleptic drugs. These results support the dopamine hypothesis, however, only on the assumption that the drugs act by reversing an underlying disease mechanism (or part of it). An alternative explanation is that the drugs work by inducing a state of neurological suppression that reduces the intensity of symptoms.”[xi]

“Research on dopamine concentrations in postmortem brain tissue, on homovanillic acid concentrations, and on dopamine receptors has been negative or inconclusive. Therefore, the idea that the symptoms of psychosis or schizophrenia are caused by the overactivity of dopamine is not supported by current evidence.”[xii]

Also according to Torrey, “Childhood trauma and stress theories of schizophrenia have a long and disreputable scientific history.”[xiii] He also states that, “…there are major problems with the childhood trauma studies and no credible evidence to support the linkage of such trauma to the causes of schizophrenia.”[xiv] He dismisses accounts of childhood trauma as being largely based on “false memory syndrome.”[xv]  Many researchers have done studies that contradict this belief.  Torrey single handedly dismisses the trauma theory because it doesn’t fit in with his disease model purview. According to Loren R. Mosher, psychiatrist and co-author of Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance, “More than half of adult admissions to psychiatric hospital wards have histories of…abuse, [which didn’t receive]…attention until the 1980s.”[xvi] Furthermore, according to an article on NCBI Childhood Trauma and Psychosis—What is the Evidence? by Ingo Schafer, MD, MPH, and Helen L. Fisher, PhD, “In the last decade a substantial number of population-based studies have suggested that childhood trauma is a risk factor for psychosis. In several studies, the effects held after adjusting for a wide range of potentially confounding variables, including genetic liability for psychosis.”[xvii]

Torrey even goes on to say that it is possibly not the trauma that causes “schizophrenia,” but the “schizophrenia” that invites trauma into the life of the “schizophrenic” person.[xviii] This is a classic blaming the victim mentality and does not account for the fact that trauma frequently precedes psychosis as is recognized in the studies mentioned in this article, among numerous others.  Of course, people labelled with “schizophrenia” also suffer more trauma due to what psychiatry does to them.

Torrey further claims that childhood trauma and “schizophrenia” research is not credible because it is largely carried out by “overtly anti-psychiatry British and Dutch mental health professionals,”[xix] who are therefore according to him biased. Yet, what he doesn’t acknowledge is that he single handedly dismisses a whole body of research because he is biased in favour of the medical model of “schizophrenia.” Therefore, one could say that he lacks credibility.

Torrey goes on to say that “Any parent who has raised a child knows that parents are not powerful enough to cause a disease like schizophrenia simply by favouring one child over another or giving the child mixed messages.”[xx] Of course “favouring one child over another or giving the child mixed messages” is an oversimplification, but emotional or physical abuse would certainly cause “schizophrenia” in many sensitive children. Furthermore, what parent would want to admit to having caused their child “schizophrenia”? Torrey adds to this, “Furthermore, families in which one child had developed schizophrenia usually contained one or more other children who were perfectly normal; they stood as the final refutation of these theories.”[xxi] However, certain children are more sensitive to stress and more sensitive in general than other children. This explains why one child with siblings who are equally abused may develop schizophrenia while the others wouldn’t. Moreover, sometimes only one child with siblings is abused by family; they are singled out. Furthermore, the abuse or trauma could happen outside the family, which is another reason why only one child may develop “schizophrenia” and not the siblings.  Furthermore, there are many medical conditions that can cause this condition as well.

 So if not a brain disease then what is “psychosis”? According to psychiatrist Peter Breggin, author of Toxic Psychiatry, it is a “psychospiritual crisis.” I agree with this because psychosis is indeed a crisis of the psyche and spirit brought on by trauma when not caused by physical health conditions. According to Loren R. Mosher “psychosis” is a “…process of fragmentation and disintegration…that was seen as having potential for reintegration and reconstitution.”[xxii] Moreover, he points out that “The Germans, who invented neuropathology, looked at the brains of thousands of [people who experienced psychosis] before there were any neuroleptics…and they were unable to find any cellular pathology.”[xxiii] According to Loren, Alma, and Ann of Soteria, “…psychosis evolves as a process of fragmentation-disintegration. But at Soteria…the disruptive psychotic experience is also believed to have unique potential for reintegration and growth….By guiding [clients] through altered states of consciousness rather than repressing them. Soteria’s milieu [aimed] to help its clients emerge from their life crises as stronger, better educated persons with the ability to pursue [means of living] that they themselves consider to be successes…”[xxiv] I also agree with Mosher on this perspective of psychosis.  Moreover, Mosher states, “Diagnosis, because it results basically from personal judgment, can be unreliable and unstable over time. Unlike medical diagnoses, psychiatric diagnoses cannot be validated by laboratory tests, x-rays, and the like. Treatment based on connecting the cause of the problem is only hypothetically possible.”[xxv]

I personally believe that trauma-induced psychosis, or “schizophrenia,” occurs when a highly sensitive person experiences trauma that is in excess of the afflicted individual’s capacity to tolerate or process and they cannot retain an intact psyche as a result. That is to say, I believe the trauma exceeds and therefore disrupts the psyche’s ability to maintain homeostasis. In other words, I believe it is a break down of the psyche, resulting in psychosis, and that this facilitates processing of the trauma, and once the latter occurs I believe the psyche reintegrates and the psychosis resolves.  I do not believe that people who experience trauma-induced psychosis are able to process the trauma with an intact psyche and that psychosis makes this possible.  I believe the psyche processes the trauma symbolically and indirectly through psychosis because processing it directly with an intact psyche is beyond the afflicted individual’s capacity to tolerate.  This may be similar to how a nightmare is less distressing than an equivalent waking life trauma.  The above could explain why dissociation frequently precedes psychosis as it blocks out the psyche’s awareness of the trauma in order to protect the afflicted individual from emotions that are beyond their ability to cope with.  I believe psychosis follows the dissociation in order to finally process the trauma that the dissociation was blocking out of conscious awareness.  In my opinion, what is experienced in trauma-induced psychosis is not irrational; it all make sense on a symbolic level. I believe it represents the trauma the psyche is in the midst of processing.

Like a glass can only hold so much liquid before it overflows, I believe the psyche of a sensitive person can only hold so much trauma before it breaks down into psychosis.  Treatment for trauma-induced psychosis could involve Somatic therapy with a highly skilled therapist to release the trauma that is overwhelming the psyche and nervous system, like pouring liquid out of an overflowing glass.  If a person experiencing psychosis continues to be subjected to trauma the psychosis will likely continue just like continuing to pour liquid into an already overflowing glass.  Psychiatry is a major source of continuing trauma for many people who experience psychosis and other conditions labelled as “mental illness.”

If one is prevented from processing traumatic emotions through psychosis, by being subjected to psychiatric drugs, namely neuroleptics, then they may not be able to heal from the trauma and move on.  To give an analogy, neuroleptics put you on “freeze mode,”  or hit the pause button on your brain and emotion processing similarly to a screen on a computer being frozen right in the middle of watching a video—they keep you emotionally and psychologically stuck at the point you were drugged by psychiatry.  These drugs lock you out of yourself like being locked out of your home, as if there were a padlock on your brain.  That is to say, they prevent you from processing information such as thoughts and feelings and from responding to them and thereby deprive you of a sense of self and not to mention make you less aware of your environment, obliterate your health, and multiply the stress and trauma manifold in the process.  One may be oblivious to much of this because the drugs block out your awareness due to the dysfunction they cause in the brain.  As Peter Breggin says, they cause a “chemical lobotomy.”  I believe this is the mechanism of action of neuroleptics—if you are unaware of the trauma and unable to process it because the psychiatric drugs are intercepting your brain’s ability to do so through brain damage, then the psychosis stops temporarily, but there will never be healing in this state and the afflicted individual’s health and overall well-being will sooner or later be irreparably damaged by the toxic effects of the psychiatric drugs.  Moreover, because psychiatric drugs prevent the affected individual from processing trauma, I believe it becomes trapped in the body, which can lead to worsening psychological and detrimental physiological problems over time, as unaddressed trauma affects the body as well as the psyche.

Psychiatric drugs also greatly reduce the brain’s capacity to access the intellect and they sever the connection between who you are and your brain, and it is horrifying to endure.  Neuroleptics, among other psychiatric drugs, for example, create an all consuming feeling of overwhelming panic due to this all encompassing physical, emotional, and psychological disconnection that amounts to torture, not to mention the plethora of toxicity effects. The more one’s brain shuts down from the effect of the psychiatric drugs, the more numb one becomes to this disconnectedness. Increased doses, and extended exposure cause this to occur, but the severe harm is still being done even when one is not consciously aware of it.  When people are exposed to psychiatric drugs they are not themselves.

When psychosis is caused by a physical health condition psychiatric practices are just as destructive to the afflicted individual’s health and general wellness as with trauma-induced psychosis, and the root problem will often be overlooked and remain unaddressed.  There are a plethora of physical causes of psychosis that are frequently undiagnosed and afflicted individuals end up being subjected to psychiatry instead.  Some of the many physical causes of psychosis include: seizures, autoimmune disorders, certain vitamin deficiencies, sleep deprivation, traumatic brain injuries, certain supplements such as 5HTP, certain herbs and herbals teas, many prescription drugs including very common ones such as antibiotics, certain sleeping pills, pain killers and steroids among others, exposure to illicit substances, marijuana, and withdrawing from psychiatric drugs—namely neuroleptics, too quickly i.e. Dopamine Supersensitivity Psychosis, as well as extended exposure to said drugs i.e. Tardive Psychosis, see Toxic Psychiatry for one of many sources of information on the neuroleptic-induced psychosis. There are numerous other physical health causes of psychosis as well.

It is also important to emphasize that the person with trauma-induced psychosis is likely to be highly sensitive and therefore is more affected by trauma than someone who is not highly sensitive. This explains why not everyone who is severely traumatized develops psychosis; it also explains why people who experience psychosis are less likely to be violent than the rest of the population—sensitive people are more disturbed by violence than non sensitive people. Trauma could be caused by the loss of a loved one, bullying, abuse, health problems, or assault among others.

I believe that what psychiatrists call “mental illness,” when caused by trauma, is not an illness at all and nor a disorder or maladaptive. I believe it is a healing process of the psyche. It is the psyche’s way of processing a traumatic event. Therefore, it is a reordering of the psyche as opposed to a disorder and it is highly adaptive. Psychiatric drugs halt this process and prevent recovery.  Just like a broken bone needs time and stability to heal, so does the person experiencing trauma-induced psychosis. Psychiatry to psychosis parallels amputation to a fracture in that it removes the afflicted individual’s ability to heal by severely disabling them and leaves them so much worse off than they were before. The same is true of people with other conditions that get subjected to psychiatry.  Unfortunately, the psychiatric practices that people are exposed to, often because they are in severe emotional distress, only amount to torture through their destruction of the brain and body and the incapacitating and severely disabling neurological and numerous other disorders they cause, see Toxic Psychiatry by Peter Breggin for just one of many sources on this topic.

People experiencing psychosis sometimes hurt themselves and attempt suicide; psychiatric drugs and electroshock increase this occurrence substantially according to literature and anecdotal reports.  Researchers wonder why suicidality increases 100 fold after discharge from psychiatric facilities.[xxvi]  The answer is simply that psychiatry makes people suicidal.  Not only is being exposed to psychiatric drugs and brain electrocution (electroshock) torture, these practices damage people’s brains and prevent them from functioning in a healthy and normal way.  Abruptly stopping or withdrawing too quickly from psychiatric drugs also causes dangerous iatrogenic withdrawal symptoms that frequently lead to suicidality—See Toxic Psychiatry. Psychiatrists are not in the practice of telling people this, or anything else about the dangerous effects of their drugs, or taking people off the drugs and generally they don’t even have the knowledge on how to safely taper people off these drugs because their intention is to keep people drugged for life.

However, statistically speaking, psychosis does not cause violence unless it is substance-induced and this includes prescription drugs such a psychiatric drugs.[xxvii]  I believe the reason psychiatric drugs sometimes cause violence is that they distort people’s perceptions and also block out their awareness of their feelings, intuition, and instincts, and prevent or at least greatly reduce a person’s ability to use reason or logic due to the way they alter the brain’s natural chemistry such as by preventing neuroreceptors from processing neurotransmitters normally such as dopamine and serotonin among others.

Not all substance-induced psychosis results in violent behaviour.  Moreover, if an individual, who has not been exposed to substances including prescription drugs, is not naturally a violent person then the evidence does not support that psychosis is going to make them violent when it is trauma-induced. In fact, statistically, people who experience psychosis are less likely to be violent than people who do not experience psychosis.[xxviii]  Perhaps this is because highly sensitive people feel more in general, including trauma from harmful experiences, than people who are less sensitive and are therefore more likely to develop psychosis, due to being overwhelmed by more than their psyches can tolerate, but are also less likely to inflict harm because they are more sensitive.

Not only do psychiatric drugs cause people to harm themselves and sometimes harm others, they also prevent people from protecting themselves from the harm of others.  By preventing people from being aware of and therefore responding to their instincts and judgment including being assertive and removing themselves from situations that make them uncomfortable as well as not putting themselves into situations that make them uncomfortable, psychiatric drugs make people extremely susceptible to ending up in harmful situations and being abused by others.  They induce a severe iatrogenic dissociation that causes people to become dangerously passive.  Psychiatrists want this effect because it makes people easier to control.

Unfortunately, government officials and the media frequently and automatically attribute violence to “mental illness” without knowing or bothering to obtain the facts.  High ranking government officials in Canada have publicly stated that “mental illness” is the cause of violence.  They do not do the research and they do not want to. Questions they should be asking are: Were substances involved? Was this person subjected to psychiatry and is that what caused them to become violent?  Was this person always violent and inaccurately labelled “mentally ill?”  Certain Canadian government officials think they can end violence by making psychiatry laws more severe, but this is a logical fallacy that is not backed up by the evidence—“mental illness” is not a cause of violence, but psychiatry is to those victimized by it.  What these government officials cannot comprehend, and notably in BC, Canada,  is that they themselves have killed tens of thousands of innocent Canadians who have never been violent, and severely disabled many more survivors by forcefully subjecting people to psychiatric practices through their draconian Mental “Health” laws.  These government officials are themselves the instigators of abhorrent violence towards innocent people who they label “mentally ill.”  This intellectual deficit by government and the media pertaining to their views on the nature of “mental illness,” or what is actually psychosocial disability, and the resulting backlash against innocent people for crimes they did not commit, is the reason it is illegal to experience anything that could be labelled as “mental illness” in Canada, and especially BC.  People who practice Psychiatry have an intellectual deficit as well in that what they do to others is barbaric and without logic or conscience, and they too vilify and dehumanize the people who are subjected to their practices such as by frequently lying about their victims’ behaviour and making offensive and derogatory comments in their notes to ensure their continued ability to detain and victimize them, and of course by violating people’s autonomy and bodily integrity.  Though, one difference between psychiatry and government is that those who practice psychiatry spend time around people labelled “mentally ill,” or rather people with psychosocial disabilities, and so they are aware that people so labelled are not the violent criminals that they are so frequently portrayed as being by government and media in Canada.

Just like diabetes does not cause violence neither does psychosis, but the media likes to vilify people who experience psychosis and so would have the public believe that it does.  If the media were to routinely mention whenever someone committed a violent crime who also had diabetes, then the public may attribute diabetes to causing violence. The reason this does not happen is that diabetes is a generally understood condition and so it is not vilified.  Psychosis, however, is gravely misunderstood by the general public and so it is easy for the media to vilify it and they do because it gets attention; it sells.  A violent person can experience psychosis, though rare, but psychosis is not the cause of the violence.  A person who is not naturally violent will not become violent because of psychosis.  Psychosis does not desensitize people to violence, but substances can and can also cause psychosis. A person can also have a personality disorder that makes them violent and develop psychosis later, but the tendency towards violence would predate the psychosis; it would not be caused by it.  A person who experiences psychosis who has not been exposed to substances and who is not naturally predisposed to violence is not going to respond violently to hallucinations or delusions. Only someone with a violent personality would be prone to this and this is very rare among people who experience psychosis.  Again, psychosis does not desensitize people to violence and it does not cause violence.  People who experience psychosis are statistically less likely to be violent than people who do not.

Because it is illegal in Canada and especially BC to experience psychosis and other types of severe emotional distress, as well as health problems that get labelled as “mental illness,” hence the BC Mental “Health” Act, for example, the general outcome for afflicted individuals is that the police will be called, you will be locked up, put on probation indefinitely through psychiatry “teams” in the community, and subjected to a brutal infringement of your inherent human and Charter rights—you will be robbed of your freedom, your autonomy and your health and even yourself and your abilities due to how psychiatry damages people’s brains and bodies, ultimately you will be incapacitated and disabled by psychiatry.  Of course the law does not apply to government; they inflict harm as they wish through their policies such as the BC Mental “Health” Act, and blatantly ignore other policies and laws such as the Charter without consequence.  There is no government accountability. Canada is not a true democracy; this is a facade for appearance not practice.  Government in Canada is more akin to a rotating autocracy.  Once we vote we have no more say.  We can petition the government, take them to court, and insist that they adhere to the Charter as well as domestic, and international agreements such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and they will go through the formal process, but once this is done all they have to do is ignore or dismiss us in favour of their own agendas, and they do. This is evident through the abhorrent abuse of power towards those labelled “mentally ill.” The people who created and who implement mental “health” laws are the violent offenders they accuse their victims of being.  Canadian governments frequently condemn the human rights abuses of other countries while blindly ignoring their own.   Canadian governments and the media are using war strategies by vilifying and dehumanizing people who they label “mentally ill” in order to justify torturing and killing them through the forceful use of psychiatry. Government and media collusion with psychiatry is a modern day witch hunt of those labelled “mentally ill.” Abuse of those with severe emotional distress affecting the psyche, as well as those with health conditions that affect the brain, has been happening with increasing prevalence around the world for hundreds of years.

People who practice psychiatry and those who enable them to do so, namely government among others, are predators; in my experience there are rare exceptions that are due to ignorance.  They impose their ideologies on other people, who are generally suffering too much as it is, and feel an extremely  disturbing sense of entitlement to dominate people’s lives and bodies and to the latter’s detriment.  This entitled attitude and behaviour is of a primitive and uncivilized constitution that is completely devoid of ethics. Psychiatry is just another breed of the many types of persecution that have spanned human history.

Another example of the predatory nature of people in government who victimize those labelled “mentally ill” is the former Federal Liberal government’s expansion of Medical Assistance in Dying to “mental illness.” Historically, the former Liberal government of Canada, among other Federal governments, has not supported non-discrimination towards those considered to have “mental illness.”  There was also no attempt to improve the quality of life of those subjected to psychiatry or to uphold their Charter rights.  Therefore, I do not believe this law was about inclusivity. I believe the unspoken motive was to annihilate people who members of government ignorantly viewed as problematic under the grotesque guise of equal opportunity.  It is without doubt that this law was predatory and was going to be used to abuse.

The people who end up subjected to psychiatry are not the people portrayed on the news by ill-intentioned journalists and news castors.  Some examples of people I have met who have been subjected to psychiatry include, teachers, lawyers, journalists, professors, university students, nurses, and other decent people who have had atrocious experiences that led to severe emotional distress, as well as people who suffered the misfortune of a health problem and were labelled “mentally ill” by psychiatrists.  There have also been occasions where people who did not have severe emotional distress that affected their psyche and people who did not have a health condition that affected their brain were brought to psych wards by police due to some offence like getting into a fight or an argument or were the victim of someone giving false or misleading information about them to the police, or the police themselves overreacting or misinterpreting a situation resulting in an innocent individual being arbitrarily confined in a psychiatric facility and subjected to psychiatry.

You cannot address distress of the psyche with neurotoxic drugs or brain electrocution (electroshock), or any other condition for that matter.  The psyche is not a body part that can be  physically altered.  You can only damage someone’s brain to the point where they are less aware of their psyche or even oblivious to it through these practices.  This is what psychiatry calls “treatment.” In other words, psychiatry is the practice of, frequently by force, shutting down people’s brains by causing brain damage, and resulting in treacherous toxicity effects, so that normal emotion processing is no longer possible.  A more appropriate term for psychiatry would be psych-annihilation. Psychiatrists create their own “work” by making and keeping their victims iatrogenically mentally ill through their brain damaging practices, which really is the only true kind of mental illness—the effect of having your brain unnaturally damaged. Psychiatry, government, and the media refer to psychiatric practices as, “medicine,” “treatment,” “involuntary care,” but this is a false narrative.  The components of psychiatry are actually—torture, assault, blackmail, restraint, and arbitrary confinement.

Ideally, there would be publicly funded voluntary respite services for people experiencing psychosis and other forms of severe emotional distress where they could be kept safe, medical causes could be ruled out, their housing could be maintained during their stay, they could have trauma-informed practices and trauma therapy if desired, and where there was no form of coercion, threats, manipulation, misinformation of any kind and no psychiatry.  Substance-induced conditions would need to be addressed through a detox service instead. A successful instance of a place along these lines was Soteria in the United States in the 1980s, but this model has not received government support.[xxix]

[i]                 Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins
[ii]                Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins
[iii]               https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160229/
[iv]            https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19794359/
[v]             https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2768599/
[vi]               Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[vii]              Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[viii]             https:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182006/
[ix]               https:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182006/
[x]                Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xi]            https://journals.lww.com/hrpjournal/Fulltext/2009/05000/A_Critiqueof_the_‌‌
Dopamine_Hypothesis.4.aspx
[xii]              https://journals.lww.com/hrpjournal/Fulltext/2009/05000/A_Critiqueof_the_
Dopamine_Hypothesis.4.aspx
[xiii]             Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xiv]             Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xv]              Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xvi]             Mosher, L.R., & Hendrix, V. (2004). Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. United States of America: Xlibris Corporation.
[xvii]            https:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3182006/
[xviii]           Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xix]             Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xx]              Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xxi]             Torrey, E.F. (2019). Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manual. New York: HarperCollins.
[xxii]            Mosher, L.R., & Hendrix, V. (2004). Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. United States of America: Xlibris Corporation.
[xxiii]           Mosher, L.R., & Hendrix, V. (2004). Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. United States of America: Xlibris Corporation.
[xxiv]           Mosher, L.R., & Hendrix, V. (2004). Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. United States of America: Xlibris Corporation.
[xxv]            Mosher, L.R., & Hendrix, V. (2004). Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. United States of America: Xlibris Corporation.
[xxvi]       https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5710249/
[xxvii]       https://jech.bmj.com/content/70/3/223.short
[xxviii]      https://jech.bmj.com/content/70/3/223.short
[xxix]Mosher, L.R., & Hendrix, V. (2004). Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance. United States of America: Xlibris Corporation.