Attenuated Psychosis Syndromes Seen Through the Cultural Prism: Relevance, Terminology, and Book Structure

Abstract

People around the world, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, social economic status, and geographic locations, suffer from mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. Psychotic disorders are considered as one of the most debilitating mental illnesses in that they mostly start in youth, who are still undergoing mental and physical development, affect social and role functioning, and shorten life span by 25 years. Recently, relative international research efforts have been focused on early identification and early intervention of the prodromal or attenuated psychosis syndromes or clinical high risk for psychosis phase, a stage when subthreshold psychotic symptoms emerge and start to affect an individual’s daily function. Mental illnesses, such as attenuated psychosis syndromes, develop and get diagnosed and treated in a psychosocial biological context, which may differ by cultures. The purpose of this book is to present international perspectives on the identification and intervention of those at risk for psychosis. In this current chapter, we will introduce terminology related to attenuated psychosis syndromes. The structure of the whole book is also laid out in this chapter.