Psychosis

A clinical description involving marked disturbances in perception, belief, thought or related functioning, assessed in context. Psychosis is not synonymous with schizophrenia, dangerousness or loss of all capacities.

A perception-like experience without a corresponding external stimulus, distinguished from a mistaken interpretation of an actual stimulus. The modality, context and impact matter for clinical interpretation.

A theoretical account in which inappropriate assignment of significance to events contributes to psychotic experience and its interpretation. It links valuation, learning and belief formation without making them identical.

A task using multidimensional cues for which one feature predicts reinforcement and another does not. Explicit ratings and response times assess adaptive and aberrant cue effects separately. An absolute rating difference also increases with measurement noise.^[ref]

A conviction assessed in relation to the evidence, its responsiveness to alternatives and the person's cultural and clinical context. Disagreement, an unfamiliar cultural explanation or unusual content alone is not a sufficient assessment.

The degree of confidence in a delusional belief, often measured dimensionally. A change in conviction is not automatically identical to categorical recovery, reduced distress or restored functioning.

A belief that others intend harm, assessed as a delusion in its clinical and contextual setting. Psychological formulations examine processes such as worry, felt vulnerability and safety behaviors without assuming a single cause of every presentation.