Prodromal Flow.

Understanding the content of delusional psychosis, with all its attendent symptoms, was thought have been a waste of time. Doctors believed that the randomness of mental illness and its outward symptoms, were merely the misfiring of synapses in the brain and that discussing delusions with patients wasn't needed and moreover would create further problems. However, I have always been struck by the non-randomness of my experiences and the fact that many of the subjects and processes of the delusional mind, do make sense. They create something convincing to believe in. It is the convincing nature of delusions, which perpetuate the illness despite the use of medication and the assertion of others, including clinicians that the experiences are not real and take place entirely within the brain of the sufferer. The task of identifying those processes must begin, therefore, by studying in detail the contents of a delusional experience - the subjects that the patient deals with and the experiences themselves.

The following is an image which compliments Chapter Four of the book, The Green 'M': The Battle for Freedom and Justice in Psychiatry by B.C.Bamber, and it was probably the link at the end of that chapter which brought you here in the first place.

To get a real clear view of this diagram please right click, save it to your computer, and then reopen using a picture viewer.

The diagram attempts to put delusional processes into some kind of order, and shows how incoming stimuli is processed and checked against the central delusion. It is then pushed back out towards symptomatology or is forgotten as new incoming stimuli comes into the mind to replace it. All of it will be filtered to support the delusional narrative, which is driven by an overstimulated sense of reward and/or threat.

The second diagram, shows the processes in another way, drawing on what we know about the brain, and the way that neurotransmitters play their part in the flooding of dopamine into a depressed brain in order to rescue the patient from a potential catatonic state. Also, the symptoms seem to be driven by what is happening outside the mind of the patient as much as what is happening inside. The news, the media, over heard conversations and so on, all move towards relaspe, caused by the build-up of unresolved 'events' and the memories of those events. Also the stengthening of delusional 'habits' leads to permanent neural pathways which cannot be altered by therapy or medication.

Again, this flow chart is a compliment to the book, plus its contents will be more easily viewed from file on a picture viewer.