Tales from Across the Psychosis Spectrum: Understanding Differences and Similarities in Mechanisms and Experiences

Just as psychosis is a state which occurs in several disease processes, psychotic and related experiences do not occur solely in individuals diagnosed with a psychotic illness. A rich tradition of research has examined these experiences in the general population, as well as in groups such as non-clinical voice hearers. The presence of psychotic and psychotic-like experiences such as hallucinations or delusions in a wide range of individuals has led to the concept of a psychosis spectrum. On one end would be experiences almost anyone has had- for example, hearing one’s name being called when no one has called it, with the severity of and distress caused by the experiences increasing as one moves towards the clinical end of the spectrum. What remains unclear, however, is how different experiences along this spectrum relate to each other in terms of the qualities of the experiences themselves.

The goal of this special edition is to bring together research on the psychosis spectrum, with a special focus on understanding in detail the experiences which define each portion of the spectrum. The intention is to unite work from diverse fields and using diverse approaches. We hope to better understand how these experiences relate to each other, and what differences lead one person to experience a commonplace auditory hallucination of their name, and another to experience frightening auditory verbal hallucinations. Addressing experiences across the spectrum will assist us in better understanding which persons are at risk of advancing towards the clinical end of the spectrum.

This special edition will be accepting papers written on adolescent and/or adult populations anywhere on the psychosis spectrum. Papers may examine the whole of, several parts of, or single parts of the spectrum, and may take the form of qualitative or quantitative studies or experiments aimed at elucidating phenomenology. Both original empirical papers and reviews which provide a novel lens on the psychosis spectrum or understanding psychosis as a spectrum will be considered. Papers focused on treatment efficacy or development will not be considered, though we will consider secondary analyses of treatment study data aimed at understanding experiences and mechanisms across the psychosis spectrum.