INDUCED PSYCHOSIS AND MASS PSYCHOSIS

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In psychiatry textbooks, among the lush variety of mental illnesses, there is one that occupies a special place. Since there are painful symptoms, as it were, but the patient himself is healthy. The name of this disease is induced psychosis.

For example, let's imagine a family of two middle-aged spouses. They lived happily ever after, but one fine day one of the spouses falls ill with schizophrenia. The disease proceeds according to classical textbooks: he begins to have small problems, all sorts of disorders of attention, and against the background of these small symptoms inside the head, a voice begins to be heard more and more clearly. The patient does not know whose voice it is. But the voice is a stranger, and it is not heard in the ears, but as if inside the skull. That is, the classic Kandinsky-Clerambault syndrome. The voice says strange things. At first, the patient is confused, even realizes that he is sick, asks for help and does not know what to do. But the voice grows stronger and becomes much more real than common sense and the world around us. And then confusion is replaced by what in psychiatry is called "crystallization of delirium." In an attempt to explain what is happening, the patient invents a storyline. It may feature CIA radioactive beams or invisible poisonous gases from the FSB, aliens, reptilians, a syndicate of criminal hypnotists, or ancient Mayan spirits. Delirium grows stronger, becomes overgrown with details, and now the patient speaks with conviction about the spirits of the ancient Indians who have risen from the ashes. Who chose him as a guide to inform mankind through him of their firm decision to incinerate the earth if mankind does not immediately stop war, pedophilia and poaching of the Baikal omul.

After some time, the cops bring a person taken in a public place for being inadequate to the emergency room of a city mental hospital. The man rushed at his interlocutors, argued, demanded attention and carried complete nonsense about the Mayan spirits, who were resurrected and are trying to talk to humanity for the last time.

The nuance of the situation is that this inadequate person is not a sick person, but his spouse. It's just that he has an induced psychosis, and he expresses ideas that were born in someone else's sick mind. The psychiatrist's task is not easy. He must determine this and figure out what kind of delusion he is dealing with - classical or induced. To treat the induced delusions of the spouses, it will be enough to separate and completely stop their interaction. Soon, the healthy spouse will recover, and the patient will begin a long and difficult course of treatment for schizophrenia.

Induced delusions in psychiatry are not so rare. The mechanism of its occurrence is simple: if people are close enough or even relatives, if the patient enjoys respect and authority in a healthy person, then his energy of persuasion is sometimes quite enough to overshadow reality and common sense with his voice - just as the voice of the disease did before. rang out inside his head.

Is it really that easy to make a person believe in obvious nonsense? Alas, it's as easy as shelling pears. Moreover, delirium can be induced not by one person, but by several. History knows of cases when the ruler of the state, suffering from paranoia or mania, induced entire nations with his delirium: the Germans fled to enslave the world, believing Hitler in the superiority of their nation, the Russians rushed to shoot their neighbors and employees, believing Stalin in the widespread dominance of foreign spies. Induced delusion that has spread to a large crowd has a special name - mass psychosis.

One should not amuse oneself with the hope that a critical perception of reality is inherent in a person by nature. It is not human. Man in its mass is always a product of faith. Most citizens of any country are capable of believing anything. The superiority of their race over the rest. In the justice of the October Revolution. The need to burn young women suspected of witchcraft at the stake. The fact that the DPRK is the happiest country in the world, and all the people of the globe envy us. The healing properties of a magnet. In the healing of water, charged with positive vibrations of a psychic. On a pilgrimage to the icon of Matryonushka of Moscow, healing from infertility and prostatitis. The fact that the neighbor, a locksmith, Vitya, turns out to be a spy of British intelligence. And in the great proletarian justice, expressed in the shooting of the spy Viti along with his wife Vera and children. That Stalin is the most humane. And that Hitler is the most humane. Contrary to logic. No evidence. Despite the opposite. And if the need for logic arises, a person will find one suitable "fact" that will irrefutably prove that Hitler gave the children candy, the icon really healed the employee, water can memorize music (the scientist checked it!), And a UFO was once shot down by military pilots, they showed in TV show, infa 100%.

Approximately 45% of the world's population believes in God, although this number seems to me to be twice as low. They believe in the creation of a woman from a man's rib. And the Flood. Although the evidence for this is as for those Mayan spirits who threatened to destroy humanity in the name of omul. The rest of humanity believes in String and Big Bang Theory. Although there is no more evidence here either. 100% of all people in the world believe that they believe in the Real Truth, and the rest are fools, zombies and unbelievers.

The whole history of mankind is the story of a sincere belief in yet another delirium. Humanity is suffering from induced psychosis like the flu - in droves, in crowds of millions and for long decades without remission. Is it any wonder that some schizophrenic out there infected his healthy spouse with a schizophrenic idea? This is a completely normal condition for most people.

Each of us lives among patients with the most different induced delusions (more dangerous if the same), and he himself is also sick. This is totally normal. Only distant descendants will realize which of our today's beliefs and everyday habits were delirium. And they will be surprised how we believed in these ideas contrary to logic, common sense and all available statistics.

Nevertheless, logic and common sense exist, and some ideas are adequate. How to figure out which ones? If we assume that in a world filled with delirium, there is still an adequate perception of reality (or at least some part of it), then how and by what signs can this be distinguished from delusion and mass psychosis?

It is clear that the main criterion is the internal logic of the theory and its consistency. If there are suspicions of mass psychosis, it makes sense to abandon TV and other means of mass induction, and instead use fundamentally different sources, constantly comparing and assessing the reliability of the information. A separate useful skill is the constant comparison of theory with data from a variety of statistics. And not with an isolated incident that happened to an employee. A person for whom the image of two dead children looks more convincing than all the data of world statistics is a potential victim of induced delirium and a ready adherent of mass hysteria about the prohibition of cyclists, balcony loggias and home canning of mushrooms.

But there is also an auxiliary criterion that allows us to assume with a good degree of probability that we are dealing with induced delusions in the form of mass psychosis: these are the statistics of its participants. Because if we are dealing with induced delusion, then it will primarily affect those categories of people who are more prone to this than others. Even Wikipedia, with captivating frankness, lists the categories of people most susceptible to mass psychoses: hysteria, suggestibility, low intelligence. If the theory is supported by such characters in their mass, this is a good reason to suspect mass psychosis. Let's consider them in more detail.

1. Hysteria

Hysteria and aggression are valuable diagnostic criteria. Everyone knows that aggression is resorted to when physical suppression of dissent is the last way to prove their point of view. If supporters of a certain idea begin to desire punishment for their opponents on a mass (not single) basis, most likely they are sick. If the supporters of the idea approve of the deliberate atrocities (torture, executions, repression, expulsion, concentration camps, long prison terms), justifying them with holy goals, they are definitely sick. Delirium will end someday, and the descendants will be ashamed of the era.

2. Suggestibility

Suggestibility, superstition and religiosity are similar terms, but not the same. In any case, the last thing I want here is to oppose religion and atheism - these are such complex issues that I myself do not share either side, professing my own hybrid theory of God. I believe that there is no God in our Universe, but there will be. Because to create it is the ultimate task of the technical and moral progress of mankind (perhaps originally invented and posed by God himself, for example, by using a paradox in the cosmic laws of time). From this theory it follows, in particular, that God does not help, but sees everything (all the events of the Universe that have happened are available to God, but he does not affect them retroactively). There is no need to wait for miracles and justice at this stage, but this is not a reason to sit back and be a brute. That the prayer will eventually reach the addressee, and good deeds will be credited. And even the continuation of life after death, this theory promises - true, in half with the risk that humanity will not cope with the task, being left without the Almighty and all the blessings with which he could reward those who helped him to arise, and even those who interfered (mercy and forgiveness is a property of God). Therefore, each of the people, by their own actions, slightly changes the probability of the mission's success, and this is the main meaning, risk, work and moral choice: it will not be easy, but success is not guaranteed. In any case, this theory perfectly explains the world order, sets a noble goal of life and brings the idea of serving God to the modern level, without entering into conflict with either traditional religions, or with science, or with atheism.

But superstition in its broadest sense is a valuable diagnostic criterion, showing a willingness to accept a variety of delusional theories without requiring verification of facts. Superstitions include a variety of beliefs, whose essence is not confirmed by facts and experiment: fortune-telling, omens, dream books, horoscopes, magic, non-professional theories of self-treatment, as well as, in fact, everyday superstitions, such as the danger of black cats crossing the road. If such characters are found in a crowd of supporters of a certain idea, this is a clear signal that we are dealing with induced delusions. But, of course, a crowd of believers whose behavior contradicts their own religious teachings can serve as the same clear diagnostic criterion (even not to mention Christianity, any religion denies rudeness, violence, aggression, torture, executions, pogroms and persecutions).

3. Low intelligence

Intelligence, educational level and occupation are not synonymous, but strongly related to each other, if only simply by statistics. Therefore, if a noticeable part of the supporters of the idea are students and academics, this is hardly a mass psychosis. And vice versa: if the idea is mainly taken up by workers and peasants, declaring that their enemies are the literate officer class, entrepreneurs and the intelligentsia, then this is a clear sign of delirium (which, however, can drag on for 70 years, as the history of the USSR has shown). And in the same way, it can be assumed that the society was struck by a mass psychosis, when mainly employees, unemployed, workers and state employees go to the demonstrations, who oppose themselves to an indefinite circle of "enemies" with a deliberately higher level of education and intelligence: the creative class, entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, writers, computer scientists.