These comments from people with psychosis and their relatives will be familiar to most mental health professionals. Indeed many mental health professionals would concur, but the classical teaching of psychiatry urges caution: schizophrenia was coined on the assumption that these disorders are malignant and deteriorating in nature. This teaches us to ‘wait and see’ which prognostic path the individual may follow, so overlooking major opportunity for secondary prevention.

Breakthrough research in the UK over the last few years has shown that the early years of psychosis is a ‘critical period’ influencing the long term course of psychosis and the delays in first treatment increase early relapse. (Macmillan et al, 1986)






What is early intervention in psychosis?



Early intervention in psychosis ‘amounts to deciding if a psychotic disorder has commenced and then offering effective treatment at the earliest possible point and secondly ensuring that intervention constitutes best practice for this phase of illness, and is not just the translation of standard treatments developed for later stages and more persistently ill subgroups of the disorder’

(McGorry et.al., 1996 p.305).

The key components of the Early Intervention Paradigm...