psychosis

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a severe mental state involving impaired contact with reality, often including delusions or hallucinations

   The clinician distinguished acute psychosis from ordinary emotional distress.

2. 2
   noun

   historical psychology: the total mental process or organization of the mind

   The older author used psychosis for the mental process initiated by bodily change.

Formed from psych- ("mind") + -osis ("condition, process"), or directly from Ancient Greek psykhosis ("animation"). Its modern clinical sense developed in nineteenth-century psychiatry.

Topics