Psychotic Disorders (including Schizophrenia)
Common Characteristics
The major symptom of these disorders is psychosis, or delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are false beliefs that significantly hinder a person’s ability to function. For example, believing that people are trying to hurt you when there is no evidence of this, or believing that you are somebody else, such as Jesus Christ or Cleopatra. Hallucinations are false perceptions. They can be visual (seeing things that aren’t there), auditory (hearing), olfactory (smelling), tactile (feeling sensations on your skin that aren’t really there, such as the feeling of bugs crawling on you), or taste.
