Abstract

Supersensitivity psychosis is used to discuss the spontaneous occurrence of psychotic episodes and/or the appearance of tardive dykinesia in the wake of anti-psychotic medication withdrawal.

Such spontaneous episodes have occurred even in patients who never had psychotic episodes before beginning the medication. Studies using Clozapine have found significant evidence.

Larger discussions of withdrawal from other antipsychotics usually focus on tardive dyskinesia, a far more significant and long-lasting side effect of antipsychotic treatment.

When supersensitivity psychosis was explored in 1978, a featured concern was increasing resistance to medication, requiring higher doses or not responding to higher doses. Some articles use the term tardive psychosis to reference to this specific concept. However, articles have disputed its' validity. The condition has been discovered in very few people. Palmstierna asserts that tardive psychosis is a combination of "several different and not necessarily correlated phenomena related to neuroleptic treatment of schizophrenia."

However, some articles use the term tardive psychosis as equivalent to supersensitivity psychosis.