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THE CONCEPTS: DISTURBED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND PSYCHOSIS
Author(s) -
Aggernæs A.
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1975.tb00221.x
Subject(s) - psychosis , psychology , consciousness , psychiatry , altered state , minimally conscious state , psychotherapist , neuroscience
A theoretical analysis is made of the two concepts: “disturbed state of consciousness” (DSC) and “psychosis”, and these concepts are defined in ways which are consistent with actual clinical psychiatric work on the Continent. Concerning DSC's two points are emphasized: Whether we, as psychiatrists, are conscious of it or not ‐ one of our premisses for classifying a state as a pathological DSC is an evaluation of the client's ability to change the state voluntarily. Furthermore, stating that a DSC was present in the time interval t 1 ‐t n implies stating that all experiences were abnormal in some way during the interval ‐ when the word “experience” is taken in the broad sense, including William James' “fringe” and “embeddedness” in the stream of consciousness. Reality testing may remain the cardinal point in the definition of “psychosis” ‐ if we make the distinction between theoretical, “fullblown”, syndromes and concrete syndromes with fewer symptoms clear to ourselves.