Irish Independent: Shame, stigma, losing touch with reality but hope and healing too – what it’s like to live with psychosis

Consultant Psychiatrist and National Clinical Lead for the HSE’s Early Intervention for Psychosis programme Dr Karen O’Connor spoke with Irish Independent reporter Niamh Jimenez about presentations and treatment of psychosis, alongside testimony from young people who have had experiences of psychosis and their perspectives on recovery and stigma.

Read snippets featuring Dr O’Connor below, and read the article in full (behind a paywall) on the Irish Independent website here.

Dr Karen O’Connor is the National Clinical Lead for the HSE’s Early Intervention for Psychosis (EIP) programme and a consultant psychiatrist for RISE, an EIP service in South Lee, Co Cork.

She says that increased use of the umbrella term represents a shift away from “rigid diagnoses” towards a “broader, more inclusive” approach.

Psychosis, according to the consultant psychiatrist, refers to a collection of mental health conditions that affect the brain’s “ability to process information”.

During psychosis, people experience a “loss of touch with reality,” which may present as auditory hallucinations, such as hearing voices or ringing phones, or delusions, such as the belief that they are being followed or watched.

These “positive symptoms,” as defined in medical terms, are often what drive the 1,500 new annual cases in Ireland to seek treatment, since they tend to have a significant impact on a person’s daily functioning.

Conor Gavin, a 25-year-old engineer who had an episode of psychosis almost 10 years ago, notes that even after recovering from a first episode of psychosis, individuals may still have to manage “deficits in mood, concentration, cognition and sleep”.

“One of the misconceptions that I see for me and others around me is an expectation that you’ll be better right away,” he says.

Each individual’s experience of psychosis, which exists on a spectrum, is unique. Although negative symptoms have traditionally received less attention from both mental health services and the media, Dr O’Connor emphasises that they too can have a “big functional impact”.

In Dr O’Connor’s view, medication can be critical, especially during the acute phase, but it is not a cure-all solution for everyone. She believes that people should also have the option of “doing specialised psychological work” to address negative symptoms, which tend to be less responsive to medication.