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The Primordial Mind and Psychosis |
Michael Robbins, MD |
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Abstract |
The psychotic mind, of which schizophrenia is an example, functions according to a system qualitatively different from thought.
The result is much like enacting a dream while awake. A model for this process of primary mental activity (PMA) is described.
PMA appears to have a distinctive neurological circuitry that is similar to that which underlies dreaming. PMA uses language and
other learned elements literally rather than symbolically and transmits and receives meaning literally and forcibly rather than by
an exchange of thoughts, emotions and ideas. PMA is the normal modality of infancy and early childhood because its neural circuitry
is fully functional at birth whereas the capacity for thought develops slowly. Thought does not replace PMA but integrates
and controls its expression in interpersonally adaptive ways. Psychosis develops when a pathological family environment rewards
PMA after it has ceased to be socially adaptive, undermines development of thought and adaptive regulation of PMA. (Korean J
Schizophr Res 2010;13:5-8) |
Key Words:
Primary mental activity,Psychosis,Schizophrenia,Hallucination,Delusion,Thought,Dissociation
,Integration |
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