I also came across this book, which has been on my wish list for quite some time. It further brings together some thoughts as related to psychosis, dissociation, and trauma...
Quote:
In the 100 years since Eugen Bleuler unveiled his concept of schizophrenia, which had dissociation at its core, the essential connection between traumatic life events, dissociative processes and psychotic symptoms has been lost. Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation is the first book to attempt to reforge this connection, by presenting challenging new findings linking these now disparate fields, and by comprehensively surveying, from a wide range of perspectives, the complex relationship between dissociation and psychosis.
A cutting-edge sourcebook, Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation brings together highly-respected professionals working in the psychosis field with renowned clinicians and researchers from the fields of traumatic stress, dissociation and the dissociative disorders, and will be of interest to those working with or studying psychotic or dissociative disorders, as well as trauma-related conditions such as borderline personality disorder or complex post-traumatic stress disorder. It makes an invaluable contribution to the burgeoning literature on severe mental disorders and serious life events. The book has three sections: - Connecting trauma and dissociation to psychosis - an exploration of the links between trauma, dissociation and psychosis from a wide range of historical and theoretical perspectives.
- Comparing psychotic and dissociative disorders - a presentation of empirical and clinical perspectives on similarities and differences between the two sets of disorders.
- Assessing and treating hybrid and boundary conditions - consideration of existing and novel diagnostic categories, such as borderline personality disorder and dissociative psychosis, that blend or border dissociative and psychotic disorders, along with treatment perspectives emphasising humanistic and existential concerns.
Source: http://ca.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTi...470511737.html
|
I had originally quoted the following from that book. It might help paint a more concrete picture of psychosis that you can then compare your own experience to.
Quote:
Ego-Fragmentation in Schizophrenia: A severe dissociation of self-experience
In this chapter, I will propose that schizophrenic syndromes represent a unique type of 'ego' or 'self-pathology', an ego fragmentation that in extreme forms could be considered an annihilation of the "ego/self". I consider this fragmentation or splitting of the ego to be a special form of dissociation, striking the ego/self along the five basic dimensions of vitality, activity, coherence/consistency, demarcation and identity. From this perspective, the schizophrenic syndromes can be thought of as lying on a continuum with other disorders, such as dissociative identity disorder (DID) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) all of which can be characterized as "non-cohesive" disorders. However, the perculiar rigidity and fragility of the schizophrenic ego which predisposes it to fragmentation contrasts with the fluid ego-states observed in DID and BPD. This 'ego-fluidity' may protect those with DID or BPD from the extreme fragmentation and deterioration seen in the schizophrenic syndromes....
... I assume that a highly unstable and fluctuating ego-self is less disposed to ego-fragmentation -- the most severe form of dissociation. It is even possible that is it the very instability or fluctuating nature of the ego-self in dissociative identity disorder that protects it from ego-fragmentation. This would mean that the precondition for a schizophrenic dissociative ego-disorder would be a more rigid ego, predisposed for fragmentation, rather than fluctuation. One can imagine schizophrenic symptoms as glass and dissociative identity disorder as quicksilver: the rigid glass fragments split apart and do not reassemble easily, whereas the quicksilver glides smoothly apart into globes -- little wholes -- but quickly unites without splitting apart.
Source: Psychosis, Trauma and Dissociation: Emerging Perspectives on Severe Psychopathology
|
The table of contents is listed
here. It looks very good for those who are better trying to understand the jumble of terms used to describe extreme experiences and find themselves confused at the places where they overlap.