Trauma and psychosis

Abstract

In recent years a number of authors have proposed that traumatic events, particularly childhood sexual abuse, can lead to psychotic symptoms or psychotic illness, including schizophrenia. There does appear to be an association, but the research to date has not clearly demonstrated a causal relationship. Traumatic events, like other genetic and environmental influences, can make individuals vulnerable to the development of all types of psychiatric illness, including psychosis. Trauma may well cause psychosis-like symptoms, perhaps through dissociation, but any presumed causal relationship between trauma and psychotic illness may be due to poor understanding of phenomenology, inadequate history-taking and clinical examination, and lack of diagnostic clarity.