3 people in 100 will experience psychosis in Ireland. Schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, examples of psychotic disorders, start in adolescence or young adulthood and can greatly affect a young person in terms of education, social relationships and career outcomes. These disorders also have an impact on families. Research has shown that it is very important to identify people early in the period of their distressing illness so that the best treatments and bio-psycho social supports can be given without delay. Our HRB grant, which this proposal supports, focuses on early effective treatment in psychosis.
One reason for delayed treatment in early psychosis is stigma. People who have psychotic experiences are stigmatized and are fearful not only re their experiences but about what others understand of their experiences, and so they delay in getting help.
Our proposal aims to address the stigma associated with the experiences of psychosis through the creation of a series of stopmotion animated films.
We will develop the content of the animations through collaboration with the Psychosis Arts Collective, an Irish group whose members includes individual who have experience of psychosis themselves either as service users or as family members.
We propose to use the form of animation called stopmotion animation because it readily allows for highly creative re-interpretations of the real world. This is to the core of psychotic experiences and will enhance our ability to inform and educate people regarding these experiences. Our proposal underlines the need to act to reduce the stigma associated with psychotic disorders and improve knowledge about the condition. We have provided within the proposal sample animations and links to the type of work that we propose to create to help enhance the understanding of Psychosis.