Paranoia - what is it?
Paranoia is an active and persistent aspiration that does not recognize barriers.
Paranoid individuals are essentially unbalanced people, characterized by persistent aspirations and the presence of extremely valuable ideas.
The paronial type can manifest itself differently depending on the accompanying personality components . Thus, coupled with hysterical traits, this type will be prone to manipulative behavior towards others.
In such situations, there is a tendency to lie, a desire to emphasize one’s social status and a strong desire to get into high society.
If there is a schizoid component, a person will consciously refuse contact with others. Such a person will form his own theories about what is happening , people will seem too unreliable and fixated on their own interests.
Description of personality type
It is not easy to identify a paranoid person in a crowd , because this type of character, despite the presence of expressive features, is not identified in society as exceptional or abnormal.
People with a paranoid personality are always preoccupied with some “central” issue or idea.
They, discarding common sense , try by any means and means to close the goal formed on the basis of an extremely valuable idea.
At the same time, this type can easily sacrifice both their own interests and the interests of others.
When interacting with others, a paranoid person does not seek to objectively assess the situation, find a compromise, or identify his own mistakes and false beliefs. The individual simply “plows his line,” while ignoring other people, including close and significant ones.
Strengths
A strong feature of this type is increased ability to work and determination.
Paranoid people do not accept half measures and go to the end, defending their beliefs.
Such individuals are not susceptible to manipulation, easily avoid influence and are guided only by an internal “moral indicator”, with the help of which they determine the value/significance of ideas.
Weak
A paranoid person is a slave to his ideas.
He is not able to soberly assess the situation, is prone to one-sided judgments and reliance on facts taken out of context.
Peremptory categoricalness, selfishness and overestimation, as well as the desire for universal recognition often leads to conflict situations.
At the same time, a person painfully perceives the disdainful attitude of others. If society ignores a paranoid individual, he, in turn, devalues other people's judgments and priority ideas in order to justify the indifference of society with limited thinking.
This type is characterized by an obsession with grievances, suspicion, a tendency to distort facts and misinterpret the motives/actions of others.
Example No. 1
The person is convinced that local officials are stealing money from the budget. A paranoid person begins to write complaints, knock on the doors of various authorities , seek support from media representatives and form active groups, which are tasked with bringing officials to clean water.
All these activities take a lot of time, which is why a person has to neglect work and household responsibilities . He refuses rest, entertainment and other joys due to his obsession with an overvalued idea.
The desire to expose and punish dishonest managers comes to the fore .
involves his family in the “fight for justice .
He forces the children to hand out propaganda leaflets, and persuades his wife to attend rallies and meetings of activists.
Example No. 2
To confirm her own status and involvement in high society, a woman attends social events. She spends the family budget on buying expensive clothes, shoes and accessories that she needs for self-affirmation .
The desire to please others is mixed with obsessions that society ladies secretly laugh at her outfits and awkward phrases.
External friendliness is not supported by internal sensations and resonates with resentment and arrogance.
Paranoid personality type
STUCK PERSONALITY TYPE
In extreme maladaptive manifestations, he is often called PARANOYAL or PARANOIC.
Features of the basic mechanism: over time, in normal people, feelings fade, emotions weaken. For stuck people, this mechanism works poorly (much slower than for other people). If this mechanism does not work well, then negative aspects accumulate and layer on top of each other. One negative has not yet faded, but another has already appeared. And the third appeared... They (negative experiences) accumulate (accumulate). The mechanism concerns ONLY negative aspects. They are not just summed up, but are also summed up in an associative (or conditioned reflex) way. Example: a person is traveling on the subway. Someone stepped on his foot. In this case, the person experiences negative affect. The function of negative affect is to be a negative reinforcer and shape past experiences. We have a trace of such situations in our emotional memory. This is how we are made. This trace remains so that in a similar situation we do not behave the same way. Or they simply didn’t take the crowded metro. That's why we need this trace. The trace is stored not only in emotional memory, it also associatively binds the situation itself. When someone steps on your foot, you experience a negative affect, and if you later find yourself in the same situation, it emerges as an experience. First the emotion is stored, and then what caused it. Someone forgot the situation, but the negative trace remained. I won’t remember who stepped on the foot (someone was just standing nearby), but he entered the field of my consciousness as a background. And if then I meet such a person, then by associative means I have a negative experience. If affects accumulate, then the person (stuck type) carries a negative charge. Other people feel it, react to it, he (the paranoid) sees it. And this is where it comes full circle. It (the paranoid person) immediately becomes clear to whom and why he is angry (they (people) say something wrong, look, do something...) The projection mechanism is basic, natural, ancient. It works not only for those who are stuck, but for all of us. Most of them become leaders.
We actually project our internal state onto another person. In the Bible (the projection mechanism) it sounds like this: “Seeing the speck in someone else’s eye, not noticing the beam in his own.” Projection is always next to rationalization. We create those around us largely through projection. The image of another person is a mixture of our own projections and expectations, which they constantly confirm as if for us + they have behavioral characteristics that are not from our projections. Everyone has this. And for stuck people, they see others as the cause of their own emotional states. For them, the projection mechanism becomes the leading, the main one. They live in a bad world, in which they do something wrong, do something wrong, say something wrong, and everyone has something against them. And treat normal people accordingly. Characteristic features of the stuck type1. Grudge2. Suspicious (expecting tricks from others) 3. Touchy, but they don’t consider themselves that way. Moreover, they think that they are better than others. It is impossible to change this idea of themselves. It is absolutely useless to explain to such natures what they are like. Otherwise, you will be enrolled in the camp of enemies. In his self-description, such a person will write that he is gullible and he sincerely thinks so. To the question “Are you vindictive? ”, ZTL will answer “Of course not”, and if you ask the question: “How long do you worry if you were unfairly offended? " "Yes". And this is essentially the same thing!!! Holding grudges for a long time is resentment and resentment. In such a world, everyone is bad: I am good and live badly. What is the solution? How can we make life a little better for ZTL? After all, they feel bad emotionally. They carry a negative charge within themselves. It's accumulated. To make ZTL good is to make everyone around him at least a little better (for him). They will teach others, write letters to trade union committees, the president... Or maybe more globally (Hitler, Stalin).
The level of “improvement of others” depends on power. Starting from leadership in teenage companies and ending with the political ladder. Take a higher position (gives superiority over others and levers of control, influence on others). Therefore, these people have a very highly developed achievement motivation. On the one hand, they look like they are anxious. Both are stuck. Only anxious people get stuck on something else (on insignificant details that seem important to them), and ZTLs get stuck on something else (they have an attitude to look for insignificant details in other people in order to confirm their attitude towards them (how bad they are).
They develop super control.
- Everything must be under control.
- Stiff, not relaxed
- Squeezed
If it is strongly expressed, then it is visible. For normal people, a reason is needed, but for those who are stuck, it works constantly due to the rigid effect due to which the negativity slowly fades away. It is always accumulated. Accordingly, a person is always on edge. Jealousy is a classic paranoid state. Strengths of stuck personality types (if expressed in moderation). Where they can be useful:
- Situations of uncertainty - will not twitch. He will act, he will make a decision. More often than not, this is better than doing nothing.
- Situations of danger - will always be more effective than the other. He is ready for this situation, Mobilized. It is not unexpected for him. He waits for her all the time. Knows how to act there.
- Leader (sets tasks (we are sure that they are right, it’s easy for them to do it), controls and demands their implementation). They have everything for this. It's easy for them.
- Politics is the struggle for power and the use of this power.
Each personality type distorts the world in its own way. And everyone lives in the same world. A person thinks and acts not based on what the world is, but based on how he perceives this world. We all have an ability (opportunity, mechanism) that helps to attenuate strong affects. Are we experiencing strong negative emotions? If we survive it, it resolves. In order for this affect to dissolve or fade away, a special mechanism works. There is a mechanism that is quite adaptive, it is necessary, it protects our psyche from being overloaded with negative emotions; a certain chemical activity of substances is simply rearranged so that the affects fade away. There are processes of excitation, and there are processes of inhibition. But there are people whose mechanism for attenuating negative affect works worse than others. Or it doesn't work at all. There are situations that provoke negative affect. A person finds himself in such a situation, experiences affect and this causes emotions. For example, someone stepped on their foot on the bus. Negative affect invigorates us to mobilize the body into two main types of response: either it transforms into aggression, or into avoidance and escape. This affect triggers certain physiological and neurochemical processes that invigorate us. This mechanism works. Then other events happen.
More
After half a day, they didn’t step on our feet, but cursed us somehow. It turns out that the past affect has not yet had time to fade, but the person has already been scolded. The remainder of the previous affect has not yet subsided; the next one is added to it. And in this case, affects tend to accumulate, that is, accumulate. After some time, the situation itself leaves consciousness. But an emotional trace remains. Negative experiences are dangerous things. It warns that there is a sign of a dangerous situation. It really works and always works. Such a person is in relation to others on a kind of emotionally heightened negative platoon. If you climb inside such a person, he will experience something heavy and unpleasant inside. This is not anxiety. This is a broader energy charge. If I am in this state, do those around me feel it in me? They feel it. Do they react to this? They react. Do I see how they react to this? I see. And the chain closes for me: I immediately see that they are doing something wrong towards me. And I immediately close up. And my affect becomes immediately clear to me. To me it sounds like he is saying and doing something wrong. And I'm angry. But in fact, I’m angry because someone once stepped on my foot. This is called the projection mechanism. In its most general form, projection is when a person sees in another person what is in himself. My affect doesn't go away. It is constantly being fed. I'm constantly on edge. I constantly see in other people that there is something wrong with them and something is wrong. It’s all clear to me that for the most part the people around me are not that good or good. He sees in other people that they are bad. He sees in everyone that something is wrong and sees a potential threat. A stuck person always starts from facts: “He didn’t look at me like that, I see it, for me it’s a fact!” “So if you start telling me that it’s not about him, but about me, you instantly fall into the category of the enemy. The world is not sweet for humans. Because this is a world of potentially threatening people.
And this person, compared to everyone around him, presents himself as smart, kind, sympathetic, trusting and generally wonderful. In reality, these people have a behavioral triad: they are touchy, vindictive and suspicious people. But they live in such a world and it forces them to be like that. If you explain to them what is really happening, you will instantly be recorded as an enemy. And this will not change his self-esteem in any way. Compared to these people, he considers himself trusting, maybe even naive, kind-hearted and wonderful. It's hard to live in such a world. Any consciousness tries to explain something. And he explains - each according to his own understanding. These are concepts that explain how the world works. It turns out that he has this feeling, there is energy, there is a concept and he has an inner feeling that he is better than everyone else. And since it’s hard for him to live in this world, what is the way out of this situation? We need to change the people around us because they are bad and don’t know what they are doing. And in order to change my world, I need to make them better. I have a sense of my own rightness and energy: I can do this in the family, in the service, in the profession. And it won’t seem to me that this is “not so”, impossible. Such people act based on the thesis: “This is my point of view and I completely share it.” And everyone else doesn’t understand, the time is not good, etc. Moreover, I proceed from the facts. How does this get along in their heads? Very clever. When he simultaneously considers himself super trusting and at the same time he is really suspicious. For example: In one and the same phrase a person writes “I trust people too much,” and on the other hand, that people are not trustworthy. That means he's that type.
Literature:
“Psychology and psychoanalysis of character”;
- Karl Leonhard "Accented Personalities";
Those around them react in a certain way to the fact that they have such a tense person in front of them, the person sees this and then the reasons for his negative affect immediately become clear to him. This mechanism is called the projection mechanism, when a person sees what he sees inside in other people. Such a person is surrounded by people who are not like that, not very good, “who have something against me, and if they have something against me, I have to be on my guard.” To be on guard means to be suspicious. This triggers a certain cycle of mechanisms.
Such people have a closer perception, because if others have something against me, I have to look for signs. I have a seeking attitude, and if I have one, then I constantly focus on some manifestations of those around me and notice a lot of things that others do not notice. That is, I expect some negative attitudes and actions towards myself from others. And since people notice this in me, they are also on the alert in this situation. Seeking perception always finds something to cling to. And once again confirms that something is wrong. Seeking perception, detailed on the people around me in my presence or in relation to me (no matter what people do, it is always perceived at their own expense, and not as if “a person behaves this way in my presence”). Who seeks will always find. Such people always have a ready interpretation that they have something against me. And this interpretation fits very well with my internal state. The interpretation is: “I am surrounded by such people and I cannot be in any other state.” Thus, this style of perceiving other people becomes looped and feeds on itself: “The more I look, the more I see, and the more I see, the more I have to be on my guard.”
In addition, such people, along with the fact that they consider others for the most part to be bad people, then it’s a matter of concept; everyone who gets stuck will explain this in their own way. In addition, they have features of self-esteem and self-image: “If those around me are mostly bad and different and have something against me, then I myself am a wonderful person, especially compared to them.” Because if others try to make me understand what I am like, and I imagine a suspicious, vindictive and touchy person, I immediately add them to the circle of enemies, since they want to offend me. And then, why listen to them. Therefore, they have no information about who they really are. Rationalization mechanisms can be crude or more subtle: “I trust people too much! “That is, he thinks to himself that he trusts people, but people cannot be trusted. That is, he is both distrustful and super gullible. And then this kind of rationalization leads to the fact that both the self-image and self-esteem become conservative and rigid, because there is no feedback from the outside. And then: “I am all good and wonderful, but they are bad and I have no choice but to make them better.” This is what such people are trying to do, again based on their own understanding. They may try to improve their inner circle, they may try to improve people in the professional sphere. Basically, such people spread rot on their inferiors, somehow resist people of the same level and humiliate themselves and grovel before their superiors. At the same time, if such people, due to their understanding (and this depends on personal development, education, environment), ideas arise that sometimes acquire the character of super-valuable ones either in relation to one person or in relation to all of humanity. And a super-valuable idea is because it is super-valuable because it has an extremely important idea for this person. And the person considers himself entitled and he has the internal determination to do so and the internal right to implement these ideas. Therefore, you can improve your wife, or you can improve all of humanity. This is what we observe in history, both on a global scale and in a particular case. A classic example of such a paranoid stuck mechanism is jealousy. What is jealousy? Jealousy is painful doubts about fidelity. Quite often, for most people, this painful doubt triggers the corresponding mechanism. What does "painful" mean? You can't live with him, it's hard to live with him. You need to resolve this doubt. What should you do for this? Look more closely. The mechanism of hyper-concentrated attention in relation to another person is launched, and you begin to notice what you had not noticed before. Or you notice something that you noticed before, but due to this attitude, you begin to interpret it due to this attitude. And if you look long enough, you can always find something. This is noticed and instantly interpreted in a different direction. And once this is interpreted, it instantly fuels the attitude. In fact, jealousy is the same looping ring: the more you look, the more you see, the more you see, the more you begin to doubt. And the other person can do anything. Because for another person, when they are jealous, this is also a difficult situation. Let's say she stopped dating her friends so that he would be less jealous. And this will work for the same attitude: he will think that she is pretending and fooling him.
Any behavior will be interpreted in a certain way. Nothing can be done from the outside. This is perceived as: “Justified, that means guilty.” Therefore, it leads to a specific and emotional and altered state of consciousness. Another thing is that, relatively speaking, ordinary people or people who do not have the prerequisites for such a reaction sometimes fall into such states. And stuck individuals are always in this state. In general, it’s difficult with such people, both in terms of interpersonal and in terms of professional relationships. Another thing is that the degree of expression varies greatly. Example: The boss gives me a task and a lot depends on it. But I didn’t fulfill it. I have two options: either expose myself and say that I didn’t complete it and get cuffed, or tell my boss that I already did it. I told the boss that I did it, but I didn't. And suppose tomorrow I didn’t do it either. What state am I in? I know that the boss and others think that everything is okay and proceed from this. But I know that this is not so and a painful doubt arises in me: “Do they know or don’t they know? Will this come out or not? “I look more closely at their behavior and begin to notice things in the people around me that I had not noticed before. I find many reasons to understand that Ivan Ivanovich knows or guesses. And most importantly, I begin to interpret it due to this installation. In this state, I begin to behave differently. They see it and react to it somehow. And when they react, I also see that they behave differently. In this way one can also become stuck in this state. Or, for example, the boss. Any boss, if he is a good one, makes decisions and controls the completion of the task. If necessary, he encourages, if necessary, vice versa. This is the normal state of a boss. But now that he acts like this, I'm starting to see it differently. Do I think he's hitting on me? What does he want from me? Moreover, I have a complete feeling that he does this only in relation to me. Although he behaved the same way before. But I see something completely different. Such things can lead to neuroses and can dissolve. It's better for it to be revealed. What if it doesn’t come out and I live with it all the time? And then I have great reasons to get caught up in such things all the time. These are situational things that we can all get into. Stuck people live like this all the time. When it is in bright manifestations, it is clearly visible. When it’s not bright, it’s also clear that some characteristics of behavior are associated with stuck affect and projection. Such people, if this is strongly expressed, are very inarticulate. Since they constantly live in a hostile environment and constantly need to be on alert (this also means trying to keep the situation and other people under control so that nothing spontaneous happens), this control turns into over-control and also turns on one’s own personality - over -self-control. People who are anxious also have self-control, but the sources are different. Such a person is constantly forced to control himself, he is afraid to expose himself, because if there are bad people around, then he must not expose himself. How can you substitute yourself? If you have calculated the behavior, then you act according to calculation.
What if you have spontaneous (uncontrolled) manifestations? Anything that is not controlled can potentially be used by others against me. Stuck people have internal stiffness and great problems with spontaneous behavior. We have already discussed this: a state of joy, relaxation - spontaneous states. And if I cannot allow this, then I can neither rejoice, nor relax, nor sincerely express my own feelings. And this also manifests itself in speech: he seems to be answering the question, but he seems to be talking about something else. It seems to be around the question, but it doesn’t answer the question. You tell him about yours - and he tells you about his. Moreover, in such a way that it is not clear whether he answered “yes” or “no.” He seemed to answer, but what he answered is unclear. Quite often, such people, if this is strongly expressed, have this style of behavior. “His Excellency’s Adjutant,” Pavel Andreevich Koltsov and the boy Yura. He thought and thought and asked him point blank: “Are you a spy? “And he: “Do you know Yura...” This is something from this opera. It is difficult to live with such people. You just need to understand the mechanisms and not try to convince someone of anything and greatly change your behavior. In general, if you want to get along with such a person, you have to agree with him. Even if a person begins to give arguments about this, for such a person this is not an argument. If such a boss and he is holding a meeting. And bosses are often like this, since this type has a lot of qualities to be a boss (decisiveness, energy, conviction that he is right, the ability to educate people). But there is also a downside: if this is a person with fairly strong manifestations of a stuck personality, then it is quite difficult to confuse him and advise him something. If there is a person who clearly knows that what the boss is proposing is not the most optimal way, it is useless to try to argue, since you will immediately be recorded as an enemy. Trying to give rational arguments is also useless, because when they give me arguments, I perceive that they are arguing and objecting to me. And I will try to ensure that he does not participate in any more meetings. Or better yet, don’t work for the company. If you ask: “Are you a touchy person? - the person will answer “no”. What if: “How long do you get upset when you are offended? "This is different. Therefore, what is the best thing for such a person to do? Praise and say: “This is brilliant. And from this follows this and this. And also this and this.” And if in this form, then he will accept it.
And then it’s up to him to decide whether it’s better than he thought or not better. Moreover, this question does not exist for him. Because what is offered to him is what he thought. And then if there is a rational grain in this, then he will accept it. But you obviously have to say goodbye to the authorship of this idea. Because if you say that you came up with it, he won’t believe you. And not only will he not believe you, but he will also think about you due to his own attitude. Such people feel best in so-called hierarchical-adaptive structures. Basically, these are law enforcement agencies: the army, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, etc. Then they feel very good within such a framework. They allow them to spread rot on their subordinates with even greater confidence, compete with those on an equal footing, and please their superiors. Such people have a very highly developed achievement motivation. Both anxious and paranoid, they are similar. Both of them get stuck, they just get stuck on different things. For anxious people, the motivation to avoid failures is dominant. And among the paranoid, achievement motivation dominates. Why? Because the main goal is to change those around you. And where are the most opportunities to change them? High on the hierarchical ladder. Such people are always trying to outdo others and they have all the resources and reasons for this. They are decisive, they have a sense of their own rightness. Quite often such people can do really useful things. And they do it quite often better than others. However, they compete all the time. Sometimes it is open aggression. Sometimes, especially with superiors, through some kind of intrigue. But nevertheless they always compete. And moving along some kind of hierarchy, they have more personal prerequisites and resources in order to achieve something. That is why there are many such people among high-ranking bosses. Such a person can “devour those around him.” Which he does with success. If we take another area where they are comfortable, this is the sphere of politics. Since this is an environment where intrigues are constantly woven and there is a constant struggle of ideas for power. And here stuck natures feel most comfortable and are most successful there. Again, if you look, it is precisely such people who reach the top of politics. Since this is a potentially dangerous and hostile environment: everyone is plotting against you.
If you have the attitude of looking at what others think, you will be able to resist and be prepared for this situation. And if a person with a different nature finds himself in this situation, he either tries to change his nature (and any attempt to change his nature is destructive, destructive and leads to neuroses), or they are simply pushed out of there. And then similar people compete with each other. If this is not very pronounced, if a person has found his path approximately in this area, he will be adaptive and successful. And this applies to manifestations of any type. If this is bright and strong, then in half of the situations he will be more successful than others, and in the other - less successful. And if life develops in such a way that a person more often finds himself in maladaptive situations, then we will have not only a stuck, but also a paranoid or paranoid nature. Such a person always proceeds from facts. It is impossible to refute it in this sense. Another thing is that he interprets these facts in his own way. His reality, of course, is distorted, but nevertheless, he relies on this reality. And when he begins to see what is not there, these are already psychotic states and delirium. There are no pure types, and such people can either be aggressively stuck, or they can be aggressively sanctimonious, writing letters and fighting for morality. They are different, but the mechanism is the same and manifests itself in a slightly different way due to its features. A person stuck in a situation where he has to give in, how will he be perceived? How stubborn and stubborn. And in situations where there is a real potential danger, it will be perceived as precaution. That is, in some situations this quality will be perceived by us as suspicion, and in others - as prudence. The quality is the same, but depending on the situation, it is either positively or negatively assessed. Therefore, in language there are a lot of nuances in denoting a person’s manifestation in different situations. In the example “the wind blew,” how will the stuck nature behave? He has to evaluate it, what is it, threatening or not? An anxious person would rather evaluate it as threatening, but the response style is avoidance.
And the one who gets stuck is more likely to take a gun and sit under a nearby bush and sit all night. Is his behavior adaptive or maladaptive? If it's wind, it's maladaptive. And if these are bad people, then it’s adaptive. What if these are several bad people with machine guns? Then his behavior is also non-adaptive, because it is a threat to life. And our problem in life is that we almost never know what the situation really is. We learn what our nature is and what the situation is, most often, in hindsight. And in this way we find out whether we are a brave person or not. Etc. Until the situation occurs, we cannot say to ourselves what we are like. So in reality, in order to do something, you have to constantly put yourself on the line. Such people are prone to so-called super-valuable ideas. He may have a person he idolizes. But then on behalf of this person he does what he needs. They are very rigid. Stuckness is rigidity. They are rigid not only in terms of attenuation of negative emotions, they are rigid, as we found out, also in terms of self-awareness and self-image and self-esteem. And their nature is rigid; it changes little. And the goals are rigid. And it’s clear why they are rigid: on the one hand, there is a basis, on the other, such is his nature, he is always convinced that he is right. This does not mean that it never changes, it all depends on the degree of expression.
It may be that such a person will encounter a situation that will change him. But it is more difficult for him to do this than for others.
Paranoid accentuation: recommendations
Accentuation of character is an extreme version of the norm, in which the inherent traits of a character type are most clearly manifested.
This phenomenon cannot be considered as a deviation or a painful state of the psyche, since it reflects only a combination of certain traits, and not the presence of problems as such .
With paranoid acetunation, a person does not understand the motives and feelings of other people, relying on his own, often distorted, perception of reality.
The individual quickly goes through thoughts one after another until he settles on a specific idea. Then the person will simply “get stuck” on this idea and will go ahead, turning a blind eye to everything else.
Symptoms of schizoid and paranoid forms
Schizoid form (pathologically withdrawn). The main features of the schizoid form are a reduced need for communication and insufficient emotional responsiveness, and therefore such patients are also called pathologically withdrawn. Temperament is manifested by high sensitivity, moderate rate of reactions, low emotional excitability, rigidity, emphasized introversion. In character, the most significant traits are such as isolation, isolation, lack of a sense of empathy, weakness of attachments - to spiritual coldness and callousness. Thinking is divorced from reality, formalized, schematized. Some patients are prone to fruitless reasoning and scholasticism. Some representatives of this group are characterized by eccentric behavior, strange appearance and manners, and angular movements.
Schizoid personality disorder does not include schizophrenia, schizotypal disorder, Asperger's syndrome, childhood schizoid and delusional disorders.
Paranoid form (in ICD-10 - paranoid disorder). The most important property of the paranoid form is the tendency to generate overvalued ideas. Temperament is manifested by moderate sensitivity, high reactivity and activity (with a predominance of the first), some acceleration of the pace of reactions, high excitability of emotions with a tendency to concentrate affect on individually significant, catathic experiences. Characterized by rigidity and extroversion. The most significant features here are: excessively high self-esteem, painfully heightened pride, suspicion, stubbornness, combined with a narrow outlook, and sometimes with intellectual limitations. Patients tend to overestimate themselves, the products of their labor, and some situations that infringe on their self-esteem. They are characterized by selfishness. Thinking, as a rule, is immature and shallow; such a quality of the mind as uncriticality is clearly revealed. They are intolerant of objections and do not forgive anyone for indifference or disagreement. They are truthful to the point of exaggerated straightforwardness, rude and distrustful, vain and ambitious. The sphere of orientation of the individual is sharply narrowed, sometimes concentrated only on individually significant motives, related in content to highly valuable ideas. Anything that goes beyond the latter, no matter how socially significant it may be, does not interest them. In terms of executing highly valuable ideas, they are extremely purposeful, persistent, and stubborn.
What should I do?
Paranoid people need to stop from time to time and assess the situation . A person should not become a tool to achieve a goal, nor should he use others to achieve this.
It is important to consider the interests of others. It is not necessary to separate or accept them, but it is simply necessary to take them into account.
In order to establish contact with others and create an objective picture of what is happening, you will have to communicate with people .
It is better to directly ask someone about their true motives and feelings than to come up with your own variations and theories.
Fantasy will only aggravate the situation and “erect a wall of misunderstanding.”
You can slow down your train of thought and get rid of the obsessive desire to achieve a goal at any cost and at any time of the day through meditative practices, working with a psychologist, doing yoga and other relaxing techniques.
It is impossible to correct character accentuation without the help of specialists.
Therefore, the most optimal behavior strategy when interacting with a paranoid person is to try to minimize conflicts and avoid sharp corners . Controversial topics can be identified immediately and then carefully avoided.
Symptoms of the syndrome
Paranoid syndrome is associated with pervasive mistrust and suspicion.
A person with a disorder is sure that those around him are playing “convenient roles” in order to trick or deceive him, taking advantage of his gullibility, resourcefulness, etc.
A person with the syndrome looks for hidden subtext and evil intentions in other people's words and actions.
Even a banal discussion of the weather, news and interests leads to the paranoid type trying to interpret the words from the perspective of the malicious intent of the interlocutor.
In the absence of corrective measures, the disorder leads to the individual imagining conspiracies.
The patient may even “attack” the one who seems most dangerous to him in order to prevent the “attacker” from making his first move.
Symptoms:
- unfounded suspicions of others about the presence of evil thoughts or plans;
- secrecy and desire to protect personal data by any available means;
- doubts about the devotion and loyalty of loved ones/friends;
- negative reaction and attacks in response to any (even constructive) criticism and comments);
- confidence that representatives of society discuss a person, mock him and whisper behind his back.
How does delirium manifest itself?
Paranoid delusion (PD) is a primary delusion that is not accompanied by hallucinations and clouding of consciousness, but manifests itself in the form of interpretative errors.
Otherwise it is called “delirium of interpretation” .
Those. in the presence of this deviation, a person cannot correctly interpret the meaning of other people’s actions and attributes to them a completely different, erroneous meaning .
For example, when a colleague laughs next to a person suffering from PB, the individual with the disorder perceives his smile as ridicule, as well as an attempt to hurt, insult, or offend.
How do paranoiacs lie?
The criminal profile of individuals of this type comes down to their organizational abilities. They often become leaders of organized criminal groups. In the criminal hierarchy, paranoiacs achieve high rank. They commit serious crimes to maintain authority, and they willingly commit minor crimes to comply with the “rules of the game.”
Detecting lies in paranoids presents the greatest difficulties in comparison with other psychotypes. A stable and strong psyche allows them to stay afloat in the most unfavorable conditions. Their defense mechanism is projection. While clearly projecting his future, the paranoid behaves ambivalently, simultaneously demonstrating cooperation and avoiding specific answers.
The verifier must be prepared for the fact that he will not be able to fully extract the truth from the paranoid person. In addition, he may be unwittingly drawn into negotiations initiated by the interviewee, the purpose of which is the desire to find out the position of the verifier. Paranoiacs easily figure out the question of the survey, which makes working with them difficult.
