Acutely psychotic patients: a treatment approach.

Treating acute psychosis by rapidly producing a neuroleptic state is safe and effective. Getting psychotic patients quickly out of the hospital, keeping them out, and enabling them to function maximally are the treatment goals. Many such patients respond to a trial of lithium therapy; responders are usually better able to work or attend school and to live independently, and they less often show the degree of personality deterioration present in classical schizophrenia. Patients with schizophrenic, schizoaffective disorder, or bipolar illness should receive trial lithium therapy. Responders to lithium treatment are found in all three diagnostic categories.