Treating Paranoia

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

What is paranoia?

Paranoia is an obsessive fear of being deceived, a total distrust of the world and a constant expectation of deception. Being in paranoia, the person is disoriented in this world. This disorientation can even be felt as a temporary insanity, a psychotic episode in which it is impossible for a person to figure out where is "good" and where is "evil", where is "good" and where is "harm" and where the danger comes from.

The challenge for mental and psychological health is to distinguish between real and contrived threats. If this orientation is confused, it is impossible for a person to trust himself.

Trust is always the most important issue for each of us. On the one hand, with paranoia, it is impossible to trust anyone, but at the same time, it is necessary to trust, and trust every minute. To trust is to feel protected, to feel safe - and this is a basic human need as well as the need for food or air. After all, every minute we trust our life and health to other people, moving in a stream of cars, getting on a plane or eating food prepared by other people …

We can observe that often people who are paranoid and distrustful of the world find themselves deceived. Let's take a look at why this is happening. To do this, it is important to understand what trust is and how it is formed.

In the development of each person, the mother is the first object. And if the mother deceives the child - does not tell him the truth, makes him believe in Santa Claus and magic, hides the true father from him, and so on, then this undermines the child's confidence, first of all in himself, since the child is completely dependent on his parents and believes them unconditionally, taking everything they say as the truth. But at the same time, in the depths of his soul, he knows the truth. He knows that dad is not native, that Santa Claus does not exist, that magic happens only in fairy tales …

It is important to note here that there is factual truth, and there is emotional truth - internal. For example, a woman falls in love with a man, dreams of a child from him, but he leaves her and leaves. She marries another unloved man out of spite, without love, gives birth to a child, driving away and suppressing all thoughts about the past of her beloved man. And, growing up, the child says: "This is not my own father." In fact, this is not the case.

Genetically, this is his own father - but the psychological truth is on the side of the child - and a lie is hidden behind the factual truth of denial of first love. When the psychological truth is denied in the family, the child's self-confidence is undermined. Obsessive doubts begin about who you can still trust, yourself or others.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, behind paranoia, paradoxically, there is an unconscious desire to be deceived (to keep illusions), because it is scary to find out the truth - it causes a lot of pain that was hidden behind a lie. Unconsciously in the depths of his soul, each person knows the truth, but he is afraid to see it, accept and realize it - because knowing the truth, it is no longer possible to stay idle - you need to change something in yourself, start living differently, and this always causes resistance.

A small child always really wants to believe that Santa Claus exists, that there is magic, that a welcome gift awaits him anyway. We can remember how children protest when someone tells them that Santa Claus is only in fairy tales …

Man is a social being, and by his nature he is inclined to sacrifice himself in the name of others, so it is extremely difficult for a child to admit within himself that his parents deceived him, that he is actually right, and not they.

I will give a small example: in the 90s of the twentieth century, sociologists conducted such an experiment in kindergartens: they persuaded nine out of ten children to say that red is black, and they did not say anything to the tenth child. Classmates, five or six years old, all in turn said that the red card was black, and when the turn came to the last tenth child who had not been agreed upon, he, too, said in horror that the card was not red, but black. Only 5-7% of children said that the card was still red! Just the same confusion that is going on in the soul of a child who says that red is black, so as not to contradict the majority, and there is a picture of paranoia, when all landmarks collapse, and internal struggle and anxiety flood the personality, undermine aspects of self-confidence and self-esteem.

But actually, paranoia is not always a negative aspect. It is often justified. For example, paranoia is a healthy response to antisociality. A striking example of antisocial personalities in our country is Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin. Paranoid fear of disgrace or repression in those days is a manifestation of mental and psychological health, if it did not develop into a persecution mania. Denial of reality and a sense of security are psychological defenses that grossly distort reality. But it is extremely important to note that the tyrants themselves suffered from excessive suspicion. This is precisely due to the fact that paranoia, as well as depression, are integral parts of the antisocial personality structure.

What can help with paranoia?

If we talk about the psychoanalytic view of the treatment of paranoia, it is important to note that, first of all, the work of a psychologist is aimed at building basic trust, restoring protective images, strengthening the client's own “I”, and stabilizing his self-esteem.

In the course of anonymous consultations with a psychologist, the client begins to better orient himself in his own personality, see and appreciate the inner psychological truth, trust himself more and feel confident in order to be able to defend himself and defend his interests.