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See also:PARANOIA (Gr. 7rapa, beyond, and voeev, to understand) , a chronic See also:mental disease, of which systematized delusions with or without hallucinations of the senses are the prominent characteristics . The delusions may take the See also:form of ideas of persecution or of grandeur and ambition; these may exist separately or run concurrently in the same individual, or they may become transformed in the course of the patient's See also:life from a persecutory to an ambitious See also:character . The disease may begin during See also:adolescence, but the See also:great See also:majority of the subjects See also:manifest no symptoms of the See also:affection until full adult life . The prominent and distinguishing symptom of See also:paranoia is the delusion which is gradually organized out of a See also:mass of See also:original but erroneous beliefs or convictions until it forms an integral See also:part of the See also:ordinary mental processes of the subject and becomes fused with his See also:personality . This slow See also:process of the growth of a false See also:idea is technically known as " systematization," and the resulting delusion is then said to be " systematized." As such delusions are coherently formed there is no manifest mental confusion in their expression . Notwithstanding the fixity of the delusion it is subject in some cases to transformation which permits of the See also:gradual substitution of delusions of grandeur for delusions of persecution . It happens also that periods of remission from the See also:influence of the delusion may occur from See also:time to time in individual cases, and it may even happen, though very rarely, that the delusion may permanently disappear . It is necessary to point out that there is undoubtedly what may be called a paranoiac mental constitution, in which delusions may appear without becoming fixed or in which they may never appear . The characteristics of this type of mind are credulity, a tendency to See also:mysticism and a certain aloofness from reality, combined, as the See also:case may be, with timidity and suspicion or with vanity and See also:pride . On such a See also:soil it is easy to understand that, given the necessary circumstances, a systematized delusional See also:insanity may develop . The See also:term paranoia appears to have been first applied by R. von See also:Krafft-Ebing in 1879 to all forms of systematized delusional insanity . See also:Werner in 1889 suggested its generic use to supplant Wahnsinn and Verriicktheit, the See also:German equivalents of mental states which originally meant, respectively, the delusional insanity of ambition and the delusional insanity of persecution—terms which had become hopelessly confused owing to divergences in the published descriptions of various authors .
The rapid development of clinical study has now resulted in the See also:isolation of a comparatively small See also:group of diseases to which the term is applied and the relegation of other See also:groups bearing more or less marked resemblances to it to their proper categories
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Thus, for example, it had formerly been held that acute paranoia was frequently a curable disease
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It is now proved that the so-called acute forms were not true paranoias, many of them being transitory phases of E
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Kraepelin's dementia praecox, others being terminal conditions of acute See also:melancholia, of acute confusional insanity, or even protracted cases of See also:delirium tremens
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While it removes from the paranoia group innumerable phases of delusional insanity met with in patients labouring under secondary dementia as a result of alcoholism or acute insanity, such a statement does not exclude patients who may have had, during their previous life, one or more attacks of some acute mental disease, such as See also:mania, for the paranoiac mental constitution may be, though rarely, subject to other forms of neurosis
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Attempts have been made to See also:base a See also:differential diagnosis of paranoia upon the presence or See also:absence of a morbid emotional See also:element in the mind of the subjects, with the See also:object of referring to the group only such cases as manifest a purely intellectual disorder of mind
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Though in some cases of the disease the mental symptoms may, at the time of observation, be of a purely intellectual nature, the further back the See also:history of any case is traced the greater is the See also:evidence of the influence of preceding emotional disturbances in moulding the intellectual peculiarities
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Indeed it may be said that the fundamental emotions of vanity or pride and of fear or suspicion are the groundwork of the disease
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We are justified therefore in ascribing the intellectual aberrations which are manifested by delusions, in part at least, to the preponderating influence of morbid emotions which alter the perceptive and aperceptive processes upon which depend the normal relation of the human mind to its environment
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Although, generally speaking, paranoiacs manifest marked intellectual clearness and a certain amount of determination of character in the exposition of their symptoms and in their manner of reacting under the influence of their delusions, there is, without any doubt, an element of original abnormality in their mental constitution
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Such a mental constitution is particularly subject to emotional disturbances which find a favourable See also:
It is just here that the paranoiac fails, and in this failure lies the See also: 1 . Persecutory Paranoia.—This form is characterized by delusions of persecution with hallucinations of a painful and distressing character . In predisposed persons there is often observed an See also:anomaly of character dating from See also:early life . The subjects are of a retiring disposition, generally studious, though not brilliant or successful workers . They prefer solitude to the society of their See also:fellows and are See also:apt to be introspective, self-See also:analytical or given to unusual modes of thought or See also:literary pursuits . Towards the commencement of the insanity the patients become gloomy, preoccupied and irritable . Suspicions regarding the attitude of others take See also:possession of their minds, and they ultimately come to suspect the conduct of their nearest relatives . The conversations of friends are supposed by the patient to be interlarded with phrases which, on examination, he believes to contain hidden meanings, and the See also:newspapers appear to abound in veiled references to him . A stray word, a look, a gesture, a smile, a cough, a shrug of the shoulders on the part of a stranger are apt to be misinterpreted and brooded over . The extraordinary prevalence of this imagined See also:conspiracy may See also:lead the patient to regard himself as a See also:person of great importance, and may result in the formation of delusions of ambition which intermingle themselves with the See also:general conceptions of persecution, or which may wholly supplant the persecutory insanity . At this juncture, however, it generally happens that hallucinations begin to appear . These, in the great majority of instances, are auditory and usually commence with indefinite noises in the ears, such as ringing sounds, hissing or whistling . Gradually they assume a more definite form until isolated words and ultimately formed See also:sentence are distinctly heard . There is great diversity in the completeness of the verbal hallucinations in different patients . Some patients never experience more than the subjective annoyance of isolated words generally of an insulting character, while others are compelled to listen to See also:regular dialogues carried on by unknown voices concerning themselves . A not uncommon form of verbal See also:hallucination is formulated in the complaint of the patients that " all their thoughts are read and proclaimed aloud." Even more than the enforced listening to verbal hallucinations this " thought See also:reading " distresses the patient and often leads him to acts of violence, for the privacy of his inmost thoughts is, he believes, desecrated, and he often feels helpless and desperate at a .condition from which there is no possible escape . Though some of the subjects do not develop any other form of hallucination, it is unfortunately the See also:lot of others to suffer, in addition, from hallucinations of See also:taste, See also:smell or See also:touch . The misinterpretation of subjective sensations in these sense See also:organs leads to the formulation of delusions of poisoning, of being subjected to the influence of noxious gases or powders, or of being acted on by agencies such as See also:electricity . Such are the persons who take their See also:food to chemists for See also:analysis; who complain to the See also:police that people are acting upon them injuriously; who hermetically See also:seal every crevice that admits See also:air to their bedrooms to prevent the entrance of poisonous fumes; or who See also:place See also:glass castors between the feet of their beds and the See also:floor with the object of insulating electric currents . Such patients obtain little See also:sleep; some of them indeed remain awake all See also:night—for the symptoms are usually worse at night—and have to be content with such snatches of sleep as they are able to obtain at See also:odd times during the See also:day . It is obvious that a person tormented and distracted in the way described may at any moment lose self-See also:control and become a danger to the community . But perhaps the most distressing and most distracting of all hallucinations are those which for want of a better name are termed " sexual." The subjects of these hallucinations, both male and See also:female, under the belief that improper liberties are taken with them, are more clamant and threatening than any other class of paranoiac . During the course of a disease so distressing in its symptoms the patient's suspicions as to the authors of his persecution vary much in indefiniteness . He often never fixes the See also:direct blame upon any individual, but refers to his persecutors as "they" or a " society," or some corporate See also:body such as " lawyers," " priests " or " freemasons." It not infrequently happens however, that suspicions gradually converge upon some individual or that from an early stage of the disease the patient has, generally under the influence of hallucinations, fixed the origin of his trouble upon one or two persons . When this takes place the See also:matter is always serious from the point of view of See also:physical danger to the inculpated person, especially if the patient is of a violent or vindictive disposition . The persecutory type of the disease may persist for an indefinite See also:period—even for twenty or See also:thirty years—without any See also:change except for the important fact that remissions in the intensity of the symptoms occur from time to time . These remissions may be so marked as to give rise to the belief that the patient has recovered, but in true paranoia this is hardly ever the case, and sooner or later the persecution begins again in all its former intensity . 2 . Ambitious Paranoia.—After a See also:long period of persecution a change in the symptoms may set in, in some cases, and the intensity of the hallucinations may become modified . At the same time delusions of grandeur begin to appear, at first faintly, but gradually they increase in force until they ultimately supplant the delusions of persecution . At the same time the hallucinations of a disagreeable nature fade away and are replaced by auditory hallucinations conformable to the new delusions of grandeur . Undoubtedly, however, this form of paranoia may commence, so far as can be observed, with delusions of grandeur, in which case there is seldom or never a transformation of the personality or of the delusions from grandeur to persecution, although delusions of persecution may engraft themselves or run See also:side by side with the predominant ambitious delusions . The emotional basis of ambitious paranoia is pride, and everyphase of human vanity and aspiration is represented in the delusions of the patients . There is moreover considerably less logical acumen displayed in the explanations of their beliefs by such patients than in the case of the subjects of persecution . Many of them affect to be the descendants of See also:historical person-ages without any regard for accurate genealogical detail . They have no compunction in disowning their natural parents or explaining that they have been " changed in their cradles " in See also:order to See also:account for the fact that they are of exalted or even of royal See also:birth . Dominated by such beliefs paranoiacs have been known to travel all over the See also:world in See also:search of See also:confirmation of their delusions . It is people of this See also:kind who drop into the ears of confiding strangers vague hints as to their exalted origin and kindred, and who make desperate and occasionally alarming attempts to force their way into the presence of princes and rulers . The See also:sphere of See also:religion affords an endless field for the ambitious paranoiacs and some of them may even aspire to divine authority, but as a See also:rule the true paranoiac does not lose touch with See also:earth . The more extravagant delusions of persons who See also:call themselves by divine names and assume omnipotent attributes are usually found in patients who have passed through acute attacks of insanity such as mania or dementia praecox and are mentally enfeebled . A not uncommon form of paranoia combining both ambition and persecution is where the subject believes that he is a See also:man of unbounded See also:wealth or power, of the rights to which he is, however, deprived by the machinations of his enemies . These patients frequently obtain the knowledge on which they base their delusions through auditory hallucinations . They are often so troublesome, threatening and persistent in their determination to obtain redress for their imagined wrongs, that they have to be forcibly detained in asylums in the public See also:interest . On the whole, however, the ambitious paranoiac is not trouble-some, but See also:calm, dignified, self-possessed, and reserved on the subject of his delusions . He is usually capable of reasoning as correctly and of performing See also:work as efficiently as ordinary people . Many of them, however, while living in society are liable to give expression to their delusions under the influence of excitement, or to behave so strangely and unconventionally on unsuitable occasions as to render their seclusion either necessary or highly desirable . 3 . Amatory Paranoia.—A distinguishing feature of this form of paranoia is that the subjects are chivalrous and idealistic in their love . Some of them believe that they have been " mystically " married to a person of the opposite See also:sex usually in a prominent social position . The fact that they may have never spoken to or perhaps never seen the person in question is immaterial . The conviction that their love is reciprocated and the relationship understood by the other party is unshakable, and is usually based upon suppositions that to a normal mind would appear either trivial or wholly unreal . The object of affection, if not mythical or of too exalted a position to be approached, is not infrequently persecuted by the admirer, who' takes every opportunity of obtruding personally or by See also:letter the evidences of an ardent See also:adoration . The situation thus created can easily become complicated and embarrassing before it is realized that the persistent wooer is insane . The failure of their schemes or repeated repulses may, in the case of some patients, originate delusions of persecution directed, not against the object of affection, but against those who are supposed to have conspired to prevent the success of the patient's desires . Under the influence of these delusions of persecution the patient may lose self-control and resort to violence against his supposed persecutors . The subjects of this form of paranoia are in the majority of instances unmarried See also:women well advanced in years who have led irreproachable lives, or men of a romantic disposition who have lived their mental lives more in the See also:realm of chimeras than in the region of real facts . The delusions in this form of paranoia are never accompanied by hallucinations . Closely allied, if not identical with amatory paranoia, is the form in which See also:jealousy forms the basis of morbid suspicions with or without definite delusions . The subject is usually poor in mental resource, but proud, vindictive and suspicious . It is eminently a condition which arises spontaneously in certain persons whose mental constitution is of the paranoiac type, i.e. persons who are naturally credulous, mystical and suspicious . The subjects are extraordinarily assiduous in watching the See also:objects of their jealousy, whether husbands, wives or sweethearts . Their conduct in this respect is fertile in producing domestic dispeace and unhappiness, and in the case of unmarried persons in creating complicated or delicate situations . It not infrequently happens, just as in the case of the class of amatory paranoiacs, that delusions of persecution establish themselves, usually directed towards persons who are believed to have secured the affections of the object of jealousy . The disease then follows the ordinary course of the insanity of persecution but usually without hallucinations of the senses . The subjects are highly dangerous and violent . Under the influence of their delusions See also:murder and even See also:mutilation may be resorted to by the male, and poisoning or See also:vitriol-throwing by the female subjects . 4 . Litigious Paranoia (paranoia querulans).—The clinical form of litigious paranoia presents See also:uniform characteristic features which are recognized in every civilized community . The basic emotion is vanity, but added to that is a strong element both of acquisitiveness and avarice . Moreover the subjects are, as regards character, persistent, opinionative and stubborn . When these qualities are superadded to a mind of the paranoiac type, which as has been pointed out, is more influenced by the passions or emotions than by ordinary rational considerations, it can readily be appreciated that the subjects are capable of creating difficulties and anxieties which sooner or later may lead to their forcible seclusion in the interests of social order . It is important to observe that the rights such people See also:lay claim to or the wrongs they complain of may not necessarily be imaginary . But, whether imaginary or real, the statement of their case is always made to See also:rest upon some See also:foundation of fact, and is moreover presented, if not with ability, at any See also:rate with forensic skill and plausibility . As the litigants are persons of one idea, and only capable orseeing one side of the case—their own—and as they are actuated by convictions which preclude feelings of delicacy or diffidence, they ultimately succeed in obtaining a See also:hearing in a See also:court of See also:law under circumstances which would have discouraged any normal individual . Once in the law courts their See also:doom is sealed . Neither the loss of the case nor the See also:payment of heavy expenses have any effect in disheartening the litigant, who carries his suit from court to court until the methods of legal appeal are exhausted . The suit may be raised again and again on some side issue, or some different legal See also:action may be initiated . In spite of the See also:alienation of the sympathy of his relations and the See also:advice of his friends and lawyers the paranoiac continues his futile litigation in the See also:firm belief that he is only defending himself from See also:fraud or seeking to regain his just rights . After exhausting his means and perhaps those of his family and finding himself unable to continue to litigate to the same See also:advantage as formerly, delusions of persecution begin to establish themselves . He accuses the See also:judges of corruption, the lawyers of being in the pay of his enemies and imagines the existence of a conspiracy to prevent him from obtaining See also:justice . One of two things usually happens at this stage . Though well versed in legal See also:procedure he may one day lose self-control and resort to threats of violence . He is then probably arrested and may on examination be found insane and committed to an See also:asylum . Another not uncommon result is that finding himself non-suited in a court of law he commits a technical See also:assault upon, it may be, some high legal functionary, or on some person in a prominent social position, with the object of securing an opportunity of directing public See also:attention to his grievances . The only result is, as in the former instance, his medical certification and incarceration . Paranoia is generally a hopeless affection from the point of view of recovery . From what has been stated regarding its See also:genesis and slow development it is apparent that no form of XX . 25ordinary medical treatment can be of the least avail in modifying its symptoms . The best that can be done in the interests of the patients is to place them in surroundings where they can be shielded from infl"ences which aggravate their delusions and in other respects to make their unfortunate lot as pleasant and as easy to endure as possible . As has been frequently stated, the subjects of most forms of paranoia are liable to commit See also:crime, usually of violence, which may lead to their being tried for assault or murder . The question of their responsibility before the law is therefore one of the first importance (see also INSANITY: Law) . The famous case of McNaghten, tried in 1843 for the murder of Mr See also:Drummond, private secretary to See also:Sir See also:Robert See also:Peel, is, in this connexion, highly important, for McNaghten was a typical paranoiac labouring under delusions of persecution, and his case formed the basis of the famous deliverance of the judges in the See also:House of Lords, in the same See also:year, on the general question of criminal responsibility in insanity . See also:Answer 4 of the judges' deliverance contains the following statement of law: If " he labours under such partial delusion only and is not in other respects insane we think he must be considered in the same situation as to responsibility as if the facts to which the delusion exists were real . For example, if under the influence of his delusion he supposes another man to be in the See also:act of attempting to take away his life, and he kills that man, as he supposes, in self-See also:defence, he would be exempt from See also:punishment . If his delusion was that the deceased had inflicted a serious injury to his character and See also:fortune, and he killed him in revenge for such supposed injury, he would be liable to punishment." In considering this deliverance it must be remembered that it was given under the influence of the enormous public interest created by the McNaghten trial . It has also to be remembered that in a criminal court the term responsibility means liability to legal punishment .
The dictum laid down in answer 4 is open to several objections
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(1) It is based upon the erroneous See also:assumption that a person may be insane on one point and sane on every other
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This is a loose popular See also:fallacy for which there is no foundation in clinical See also:medicine, The systematization of a delusion involves, as has been pointed out, the whole personality and affects emotion, intellect and conduct
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The human mind is not divided into mutually exclusive compartments, but is one indivisible whole liable to be profoundly modified in its relation to its environment according to the emotional strength of the predominant morbid concepts
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(2) It does not take into account the pathological diminution of the power of self-control
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The influence of continued delusions of persecution, especially if accompanied by painful hallucina• tions, undermines the power of self-control and tends ultimately to reduce the subject towards the condition of an See also:automaton which reacts reflexly and blindly to the impulse of the moment, (3) The See also:opinion is further at See also:fault in so far as it assumes that the test of responsibility rests upon the knowledge of right and wrong, which implies the power to do right and to avoid wrong, an assumption which is very far from the truth when applied to the insane
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The number of insane criminals who possess no theoretical knowledge of right and wrong is very few indeed, so few that for See also:practical purposes they may be disregarded
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The true paranoiac is a person of an anomalous mental constitution apart from his insanity; although he may to out-See also: (J . |
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