Cyberpsychosis
When relevantCyberpsychosis is a mental illness, specifically a dissociative disorder, caused by an overload of cybernetic augmentations to the body. Those afflicted with cyberpsychosis are known as cyberpsychos, individuals who have existing psychopathic tendencies, enhanced by cybernetics, and as a result have lost their sense of identity as a person, either to themselves or others. They come to view regular people and other living things as weak and inferior. With their enhanced physical abilities and complete disregard for life, cyberpsychos are extremely dangerous to anyone that crosses their path. Cyberpsychosis can eventually affect anyone modified with cybernetics, but the less empathetic or psychologically stable a person is, the more susceptible they are to it. There is no real cure, though treatment is available (see below). The effects are cumulative. A single cyber hand is unlikely to cause cyberpsychosis, but replacement of all four limbs and both eyes will probably start down the slippery slope to madness. Cyberpsychosis symptoms are gradual, ranging from decay of self-preservation, distancing or disregard from friends and family, and poor or impulsive outbursts or acts. They start to identify more with machines than people, and stop doing things that used to give them pleasure (eating, sleeping, socializing, sex, etc). Eventually human interactions become irritating, and this morphs into contempt, and finally violence. Not all cyberpsychos are physically violent. Some have fragmented personalities, some are kleptomaniacs, others are compulsive liars. But violence towards living things, especially people, is most common. Cyberpsychosis has become a major problem in the technology-saturated world of Cyberpunk. It is actually quite common in many boostergangs, though fairly rare in polite society. Police departments have heavily armed and armored units, called psycho squads, who specialize in subduing or killing cyberpsychos. Incidentally the government (and corporations) are not going to wait for you to go over the edge. It is quite common for governments or corporations (who are often the de-facto government) to track people who are known to install lots of cyberware. This is another reason ripperdocs exist; not everyone wants to be on a government watch list for cyberpsychosis. But if the psycho can be subdued, they will be strapped down and all of their cybernetics deactivated. They are forcibly jacked into a custom braindance, where a cyberpsychologist (sometimes called a psychoshrink) attempts to piece their personality back together. Over weeks or months, the cyberpsycho gradually regains their humanity. They may even eventually become human enough to install cybernetics again (assuming they are not in prison for crimes committed on their rampage). But they are never really the same again. Mental damage from cyberpsychosis will change aspects of their personality, and follow them their entire lives. As the Trauma Team medical docs define it, cyberpsychosis is a collective term for all psychotic and anxiety-related personality disorders caused by hardware implanted in the body and any and all behavioral mods, including software.
