[Page 2967]There are a number of psychological factors that can lead to an increased risk of developing a schizophrenia spectrum or other psychotic disorder as well as factors that appear to be related to the perpetuation and maintenance of certain symptoms experienced by those who have a psychotic disorder. Some key psychological risk factors that are increasingly being associated with the development of psychosis include exposure to childhood trauma (including the experience of bullying), childhood neglect, and communication deviance (i.e., the inability of a parent to share a focus of attention with his or her child). In addition, worry can predict the persistence of paranoia (in both clinical and nonclinical samples), and rumination tends to be associated with people who experience persecutory delusions. There is ...