Mary Cannon

Psychotic-like experiences: What are they and why are they important? Dr Lorna Staines and Professor Mary Cannon of RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, explore psychotic-like experiences, explaining what they are and why they are important. It is widely thought that hallucinations and delusions occur only in the context of a psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia. Although this viewpoint is common, it is not accurate. Many people will have a hallucination or delusion throughout their lifetime even though they do not have a psychotic disorder. In most cases, they will happen for only a brief period before fading and only occur once. Examples of such experiences might be hearing your name being called when alone in a house (auditory hallucination) or having an intensely strong feeling that someone on the street or in your neighbourhood may be trying to harm you, despite not having a reason to believe this (paranoid delusion). These are called “psychotic-like experiences” or “PLE”.