Find a therapist to treat psychosis

Delusions are false fixed ideas. These can be analogous to divergent political views.

We only have access to subjective reality.

Ideas created under emotional activation are harder to change.

This is a tough time for politics in America. But it’s an extremely interesting time for those of us who wrestle with the nature of reality. As a psychiatrist who has treated people with psychosis for over 20 years, I have lived in the uncomfortable space between their experience of reality and mine and I have worked to change beliefs that are some of the most resistant to change: delusions. And this is what that work has taught me about the current political moment in America.

1. We have no access to objective reality.

While there most certainly is an objective reality outside the human experience, we have no access to it. Our experience of reality is informed by the way our five senses perceive the world, and how our brain processes the information.

So the best we can hope for is consensual reality, which means that our realities more or less align: We both think the sky is blue, and that what I mean by “blue” and you mean by “blue” are similar enough. But when people develop psychosis, they deviate dramatically from consensual reality into their own idiosyncratic reality. I can usually tell that their experiences, while they feel real, are not shared by a consensual reality. But sometimes I’m surprised. My Haitian patient is highly distressed while talking to me about her aunt placing a Voodoo curse on her. I think she is having a psychotic delusion, until her family joins and confirm the curse. They are sharing a consensual reality; it’s just a different one than mine.

2. Our country is having a similar experience.

Lately, we are living in two completely different consensual realities. In one reality, a leftist terrorist recently attacked ICE agents with a gun, who shot him to protect themselves. In........

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