NCJ Number
176107
Date Published
1997
Length
208 pages
Annotation
After describing the paranoid phenomenon, this study develops a number of hypotheses regarding the prevalence and nature of paranoid manifestations in prison inmates, in many societal leaders, and in the public at large throughout history and in contemporary times.
Abstract
The authors' first task is to describe the paranoid phenomenon and to distinguish it from other mental disorders. Specifically, they differentiates the paranoid from the antisocial individual. Believing that prototypical clinical and nonclinical cases would assist in this differentiation, the authors rely not only on the ideas of other authors, but on the thoughts, emotions, and behavior of the individuals discussed. One hypothesis is that the paranoid phenomenon is growing. In addressing what promotes and fosters the paranoid phenomenon, the authors hypothesize that two basic dynamics are at work: victimization and certitude (infallibility). Another dynamic is bonding. Unlike the schizophrenic and depressive individual, whose main source of dysfunction probably lies at a genetic level, the paranoid position promotes the mystic and the motivation for uniting, i.e., bonding together in a cause. The authors believe that this bonding under paranoid perceptions is growing not only in the United States but worldwide. Without excluding the biological level, they develop the view that the root cause may be at the environmental level, or, most probably, at the personal level. The authors note that when a mental disorder is disruptive, as in the case of a paranoid/psychopath, confinement to a jail or to a mental institution seems to be the most appropriate course of action; however, simultaneously, there must be a search for better solutions that address the social ills and personal factors that may predispose people, because of their inner anxiety, to inappropriate paranoid reactions. In combatting paranoia, the challenge is to grow together as cooperating adult human beings. Appended supplementary material, 225 references, and author and subject indexes