A new guide has been published to help young people who experience psychosis and their supporters.

The booklet Understanding Psychosis – A guide for young people and their supporters was edited by Anne Cooke, Principal Lecturer and Joint Clinical Director at the University’s Salomons Institute for Applied Psychology, in collaboration with the charity Bright, and published by the British Psychological Society.

The publication aims to help young people who hear voices or have distressing beliefs – the types of experience sometimes called ‘psychosis’ – to understand their experiences and learn about what can help and where to get support.

Anne explained: “There are many myths surrounding psychosis, for example that having these experiences means you have a brain disease that can make you violent and can only be helped with medication. This is untrue and unhelpful. Yes, these experiences can sometimes be very distressing and if they go on for a long time some people find it helpful to see them as an illness. But that’s only one way to think about them.

“We hope this new publication will help young people, and the people supporting them, to learn more about their experiences and understand them so they can make their own decisions about what’s best for them.”

You can download Understanding Psychosis – A guide for young people and their supporters here.

This new booklet has been edited from the original, longer publication ‘Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia’ edited by Anne Cooke and published by the British Psychological Society. which you can download here.