Psychosis Outside the Box: A User-Led Project to Amplify the Diversity and Richness of Experiences Described as Psychosis

Despite some progress toward greater inclusion, individuals with personal experience of psychosis are rarely integrated into the training of clinicians or knowledge generation. Their exclusion increases the risk that dominant ways of conceptualizing psychosis primarily reflect second- and third-person observations rather than first-person experiences. Observed only from the outside, the richness, complexity, and depth of experiences falling under the psychosis umbrella are easily lost. The authors describe a project-Psychosis Outside the Box-to solicit, compile, and amplify direct accounts of experiences that have been neglected in mainstream research and pedagogy, including the subjective experiences of visuals, felt presences, alterations of time and space, and "negative symptoms."