Fuck. REsearch I didn't need to read about tonight.

Prediction of psychosis in adolescents and young adults at high risk:
results from the prospective European prediction of psychosis study.

I can't read the study so can't really comment. The results are positive
though the criteria defining psychosis is very broad. It's also on help
seekin people rather than a representative sample.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20194824

"
CONCLUSIONS: The prediction model identified an increased risk of
psychosis with appropriate prognostic accuracy in our sample. A 2-step
risk assessment is proposed, with UHR and cognitive disturbance criteria
serving as first-step criteria for general risk and the prognostic index
as a second-step tool for further risk classification of each patient.
This strategy will allow clinicians to target preventive measures and
will support efforts to unveil the biological and environmental
mechanisms underlying progression to psychosis.
"

It gives more credence to the ideas of pre-illness, specifically
pre-psychosis risk syndrome or whatever it's called. The Ultra High Risk
and basic symptom-based criterion cognitive disturbances criteria
identify people at rish of developing psychosis using cognitive tests I
think.

These states are not pathological and may not always develop into
psychosis. People will be treated for this though because of the risk
and fear of psychosis (and it's poorer outcomes). It would be like
establishing a pre-gay state of excessive campness or something. Not
everyone who was camp would become gay but all of them could be treated
to prevent them becoming gay.

False pathologisation of a normal experience arguments aside, the
importance is treatment. If they resort to antipsychotics for people who
don't have psychosis and will never experience psychosis - even if the
results in the practical use of these criteria holds up to the promise
the research shows - then they'll be killing people quicker. They'll be
giving people drug addictions they don't need.

There's a post I did a while back that I didn't bother to finish. It was
on the idea of antipsychotics as stabilisers or a bicycle. The bicycle
is hard to ride so stabilsers are useful at the start. The problem is
psychiatrists are lazy, bad teachers and they want to leave the
stabilisers on for life like a bad parent who'll never let their child
fall or fail. People can learn to deal with psychosis without medication
or with limited amounts of medication.

Ultimately it may not be a truly pathological condition. it's only
pathological because society and psychiatry don't know how to deal with
it. Centuryies of history and mistreatment of psychotics by the
barborous human race still hasn't ended so removing the externalisation
of the experience makes sense, just as a psychiatrist might have advised
Oscar Wilde to repress his sexuality, urges and identity.