Providing safety in the midst of psychosis: an interpersonal dimension of recovery

Abstract

This first-person account involves a dialogue between one person who experiences psychosis and one person who is trying to better understand and support people who experience psychosis. The topic of the dialogue is the nature of fear and safety in the midst of psychosis, not so much at the everyday level of specific fears of people, interactions, or animals, but at the more basic level of one’s existence as a person, that fundamental level that R.D. Laing had tried to convey through use of the term “ontological security.” The person with psychosis writing below, Amy Johnson, has yet to read anything of Laing’s, or similar theoretical material, but conveys her own sense of the kinds of experiences that are required to address the basic loss of personhood that appears to be a significant source of the distress and disability associated with psychosis.

Keywords:

• psychosis
• loss of self
• fear
• safety
• recovery