← Mini dictionary

Schizophrenia and psychotic disorders

It is a disease in which your brain interprets internal or external signals in an false way, resulting in a longlasting loss of contact with reality. Your emotions, thoughts, and behaviours are then disorganized, incoherent.

You may sometimes have delusional thoughts (being certain of a fact that objectively does not exist) or hallucinations (seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling things that are not real). Schizophrenia is a chronic disabling disease that impacts your daily life and relationship with others and requires medical and psychological support to get better. Adequate multi-professional support can limit its impact and allow you to maintain a satisfactory quality of life, without being overwhelmed by the disease.

This illness causes symptoms of schizophrenia as well as mood disorders: you can suffer from both depression and mania.

It is diagnosed when symptoms of schizophrenia are present (delusions, disorganized thinking or behaviour, hallucinations) but are short-lived and disappear within a few days. This disorder can appear following a stressful life event (a bereavement, a pregnancy, an accident, etc.) or following drug use (cannabis, etc.).

A psychotic episode may or may not evolve into a chronic psychiatric illness, which is why it must be properly managed by a multidisciplinary team. Medication is offered to allow the patient to regain control over his or her thoughts and to prevent symptoms from reappearing.