Understanding Illusory Social Experiences in Psychosis: Phenomenology, Cognitive Mechanisms and Impact on Social Functioning.

Studies (i.e. Murray et al., 2013) on global burden of disease, demonstrate that psychosis lies in the top medical and mental health conditions that cause disability. One recent advance in psychosis has been a focus on why delusions and hallucinations are primarily social experiences that involve being troubled by illusory social agents, commonly appearing as voices or persecutors (Bell, 2013; Wilkinson & Bell, 2016; Bell et al., 2017). Indeed, these are now emerging as a target for therapy (Craig et al., 2017)