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Psychosocial Aspects of Diabetes
Published in Jahangir Moini, Matthew Adams, Anthony LoGalbo, Complications of Diabetes Mellitus, 2022
Jahangir Moini, Matthew Adams, Anthony LoGalbo
The signs and symptoms include disorientation, confusion, memory failure, restlessness, agnosia, speech disturbances, and difficulty with concentration and/or multitasking. Paranoia may be observed, such as in accusations of stealing or being threatened by others. Psychotic symptoms may be hallucinations or delusions. The patient may become verbally or physically aggressive. Patients are initially unable to handle complex daily tasks such as managing medications and finances, and driving. As the condition advances, they begin to have trouble completing more basic tasks such as feeding, dressing, toileting, or bathing. The majority of them must be moved to skilled nursing facilities with 24-hour care. The signs and symptoms may correlate with the location of brain atrophy. In AD, the parietal and temporal lobes are primarily affected. Therefore, memory and visuospatial task abnormalities are observed first. Language is preserved early in the disease until later stages.
Ekbom’s syndrome (delusional infestation) and body dysmorphic disorder
Published in David Enoch, Basant K. Puri, Hadrian Ball, Uncommon Psychiatric Syndromes, 2020
David Enoch, Basant K. Puri, Hadrian Ball
Paranoia/delusional disorder is an important concept because it is an illness characterised by a constant and persistent delusional system, to which the patient adheres with fanatical intensity, although it is quite encapsulated and leaves the rest of the personality and psychosocial functioning intact. Hallucinations very rarely occur, and if they do, are not prominent and are typically related closely to the delusional belief. The illness is chronic and often lifelong, but the principal characteristics of schizophrenia are crucially absent.
Three Dynamic Roles of the Clinical Psychologist on the Acute Closed Psychiatric Ward
Published in Meidan Turel, Michael Siglag, Alexander Grinshpoon, Clinical Psychology in the Mental Health Inpatient Setting, 2019
Paranoia is a state of mind characterized by delusions of persecution. Melanie Klein and her followers showed that every human being may, at times of stress and primitive anxiety, return (or regress) to paranoid-schizoid positions. That is, modes of relating to our inner and outer reality via unconscious mechanisms of splitting, denial, projection, projective identification, accompanied by experiences of hyper-vigilance and heightened suspiciousness (Segal, 1979). Behind the closed doors of the psychiatric ward, where a large proportion of admitted patients are prone to suffer from paranoid ideation and action, it is expected that an atmosphere of paranoia will prevail (see Sharfstein, 2009). Searles (1979c) addresses this phenomenon in his paper “Paranoid processes among members of the therapeutic team.” In the opening vignette of this chapter, the secretary expressed some paranoid ideas in relation to Dr. Rachel, whom she accused of logging on to her computer and tampering with the data. In practice, however, people usually tend to ward off such feelings by activating them in others through the mechanism of projective identification (Segal, 1979).
Paranoia and Suicidality: A Cross-Sectional Study in the General Population
Published in Archives of Suicide Research, 2022
Carmen M. Carrillo de Albornoz, Blanca Gutiérrez, Inmaculada Ibanez-Casas, Jorge A. Cervilla
The term paranoia comes from the Greek words para (side) and gnous (knowledge) denoting “parallel or aberrant thought” and has been used since the classical era to connote madness. Kahlbaum rescued the term paranoia for psychiatry in the 19th Century, providing a more specific meaning referring to an exaggerated and/or unfounded distrust of others or the external environment (Kahlbaum, 1863). Paranoid thinking is the most frequent topic among delusional and delusion-like phenomena and subclinical paranoia seems to be a rather common trait in the general population (Freeman, 2006). From a clinical viewpoint, patients with delusional disorder present varying degrees of “paranoia vera” (de Portugal et al., 2013), a paranoid dimension that also expresses dimensionally in most psychotic disorders to varying extents (Muñoz-Negro et al., 2015). In all, there is sufficient evidence to consider that paranoia can be understood as a psychological dimension present in the general population which, in extreme cases, acquires a true psychopathological/dysfunctional level (Bebbington et al., 2013; Freeman, 2016) As described in the general population, it includes persecutory, self-referential elements of interpersonal “sensitivity” and distrust (Bebbington et al., 2013).
Mild-to-moderate schizotypal traits relate to physiological arousal from social stress
Published in Stress, 2021
Preethi Premkumar, Prasad Alahakoon, Madelaine Smith, Veena Kumari, Diviesh Babu, Joshua Baker
People with high schizotypal traits could experience more stress in close interpersonal interaction than public-speaking situations because they feel paranoid in interpersonal situations (Horton et al., 2014). Paranoia constitutes suspiciousness, perceived hostility, and blaming others in ambiguous social situations, having less social engagement and more social problems (Combs et al., 2013). Individuals with a moderate level of paranoia are more alert to social threat from strangers and exhibit more momentary paranoia than those with a low level of paranoia (Collip et al., 2011b). High paranoia in adolescents with social anxiety disorder would further suggest that paranoia is a part of social anxiety (Pisano et al., 2016). People with high schizotypal traits are more anxious in interpersonal situations than people with depression-like tendencies (Miller & Lenzenweger, 2012). Hence, interpersonal sensitivity could be a hallmark of schizotypy.
Promoting insight into delusions: Issues and challenges in therapy
Published in International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 2020
Current psychotherapeutic approaches to delusions not only aim reduction in the client's conviction in delusional beliefs by helping her/him to re-evaluate underlying assumptions that might have role in the genesis of paranoia but also focus on enhancement of self-worth and coping abilities to deal with emotional disturbances (Garety et al. 2000; Kuipers et al. 2006; Menon et al. 2017). The therapist helps the client to develop a new meaning of her/his psychotic experiences in which s/he may develop the understanding about the probable role of biopsychosocial factors in the formation and maintenance of delusions (Rathod et al. 2010). It is accomplished by cognitive and metacognitive approaches which are complementary to each other (Menon et al. 2017). Interventions, such as CBTp and MCT, depend on an ongoing dialogical process (in a collaborative manner) between the client and the therapist that assist the client in thinking about alternate explanations of her/his beliefs, developing insight into the cognitive errors behind delusions and effective processing of emotions (Kuipers et al. 1997; Moritz et al. 2010; Turkington et al. 2006).