Psychosis as an extreme state

‘The mind of a person who is psychotic works exactly the same way as the mind of anyone else. The difference is a matter of intensity and duration’.

This assertion, paraphrased from an unpublished presentation in 1985 by Dr. Antonio Wood, a psychiatrist and Buddhist practitioner, points to what I would suggests is a key concept: psychosis does not involve a fundamental change in the way mind operates. Instead, psychosis represents an intensification and extension of experiences that are common to all human beings.

Dr. Wood’s logic begins by pointing out the basic sanity of mind, a state of ‘basic healthiness’ that is, from a Buddhist point of view, the inherent state of mind. Insanity, then, is any departure from basic sanity.

On a moment-to-moment basis all of us (who take the time to notice) frequently and repeatedly lose track of basic sanity, of being present, and drift off into thoughts and emotions of the past or the future. Dr. Wood terms those moments in which we are not fully present as ‘temporary insanity’.

While ‘temporary insanity’ comes and goes, more intensive and long lasting loss of basic sanity occurs in relation to particular areas of our life. These are the life situations and issues that ‘push our buttons’. Our neuroses, the habitual patterns that we experience in these situations, involve a disconnection from what is actually happening around us. Dr. Wood calls this ‘permanent partial insanity’.

Finally, Dr. Wood describes clinical psychosis as ‘extreme neurosis’. In psychosis the loss of connection with basic sanity is more frequent and pervasive. How frequent and how pervasive will differ for each individual.

So, from this point of view, people who experience psychosis are not aliens from another mental planet. They are ordinary human beings who are experiencing an extreme version of what we all experience every moment of every day.

Note: My apologies to Dr. Wood. I have taken his unpublished ideas and presented them in a way that makes sense, and seems helpful, to me (without consulting him). He is certainly not responsible for my misunderstandings.