Emotional earthquakes in the landscape of psychosis: an interpretative phenomenology
The Cognitive Behaviour Therapist January 1, 2016 Jonathan Hutchins, John Rhodes, Saskia Keville 10 citations
People with psychosis experience intense emotions before, during, and after psychotic episodes, including distress, transformed perception, self-blame, guilt, confusion, despair, and hope. Interviews with eight individuals in an early intervention service revealed four emotional phases: struggling with life distress before psychosis, a transformed world with intense emotion during psychosis, blame and guilt after the breakdown, and a mix of confusion, despair, and hope in the post-onset phase. The findings suggest that normalizing these emotional experiences can improve engagement with services and that assessing self-criticism, despair, and hope after psychosis is important for therapy.