Does Madness Really Exist? An autobiographical analysis of psychosis as a response to trauma and not a ‘mad’ state of mind

Résumé

The relatively new method of autoethnography as valid research is used in this paper. The method combines a personal and introspective approach with the academic research method. By reflecting on her experience of psychosis, the first author (LF) attempts to show how psychotic symptoms, such as delusions or paranoid perceptions, have a symbolic meaning and could relate to previous traumatic experiences. She uses Winnicott’s concept of the ‘true’ and the ‘false’ self and applies it to psychotic illness. Using auto-ethnographic details of her experiences, she indicates how trauma, and associated falsification of its understanding, led to distortion, i.e., a false reality, a symptom typically associated with psychosis. A brief comparison is then made of her experience to two other published auto-biographical cases. In light of this self-analysis and careful reading of key psychoanalytic texts, the author explores and explains what, in her experience, may lead people to act in a manner not typical of their true being and how this might explain the rare dangerous behaviour that can occur in some psychotic cases. The understanding of psychosis as ‘madness’ (i.e., to be without reason) is revealed to be due to lack of understanding of its possible underlying causes.