delusions

Gladiators in the Colosseum. Sideshow performers. Reality television. We've always loved to gawk at the misery or majesty of others. But this week, we ask the question: What's it like when the tables are turned and all eyes are on you?

• Prologue: Ira talks to Joel Gold, a psychologist and author, about a strangely common delusion known as the "Truman Show Delusion," in which patients believe that they are being filmed, 24/7, for a national reality television program. (6 minutes)
• Act One: Producer Stephanie Foo speaks to Nasubi, a Japanese comedian who, in the 90s, just wanted a little bit of fame. So he was thrilled when he won an opportunity to have his own segment on a Japanese reality TV show. Until he found out the premise: he had to sit in an empty apartment with no food, clothes or contact with the outside world, enter sweepstakes from magazines… and hope that he won enough sustenance to survive. (23 minutes)
• Act Two: Writer Ariel Sabar tells the story of Roger Barker, a psychologist who believed humans should be studied outside the lab. So Barker dispatched an army of graduate students to follow the children of Oskaloosa, Kansas, and write down every single thing they did. Sabar wrote a book about Roger Barker called "The Outsider." (8 minutes)
• Act Three: Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall were a comedy duo back in the mid-1960s, playing clubs around Los Angeles, when their agent called to tell them he'd landed them the gig of a lifetime: They were going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. The only problem was that their performance was a total fiasco, for a bunch of reasons, including one they never saw coming. David Segal reports. (17 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

In the early 1960s, one of the most unethical experiments in psychology’s history was quietly conducted in a state hospital in Michigan. It sought to upend the delusions of the three patients involved, but ultimately disabused the experimenter of his own.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Clinical manifestations

Many people worry that they have schizophrenia. I receive messages or inquires often of people asking about symptoms and manifestations. If you have those types of questions, or if you’re a mental health professional who needs to brush up on symptoms and medications, this article should help you.

There are many clinical observations of how schizophrenia presents itself. Cognitive impairments usually precede the onset of the main symptoms[1], while social and occupational impairments follow those main symptoms.

Here are the main symptoms of schizophrenia:

Hallucinations: a perception of a sensory process in the absence of an external source. They can be auditory, visual, somatic, olfactory, or gustatory reactions.

Most common for men “you are gay”

Most common for women “you are a slut or whore”

Delusions: having a fixed, false belief. They can be bizarre or non-bizarre and their content can often be categorized as grandiose, paranoid, nihilistic, or erotomanic

Erotomania = an uncommon paranoid delusion that is typified by someone having the delusion that another person is infatuated with them.

This is a common symptom, approximately 80% of people with schizophrenia experience delusions.

Often we only see this from their changed behavior, they don’t tell us this directly.

Disorganization: present in both behavior and speech.

Speech disorganization can be described in the following ways:

Tangential speech – The person gets increasingly further off the topic without appropriately answering a question.

Circumstantial speech – The person will eventually answer a question, but in a markedly roundabout manner.

Derailment – The person suddenly switches topic without any logic or segue.

Neologisms – The creation of new, idiosyncratic words.

Word salad – Words are thrown together without any sensible meaning.

Verbigeration – Seemingly meaningless repetition of words, sentences, or associations

To note, the most commonly observed forms of abnormal speech are tangentiality and circumstantiality, while derailment, neologisms, and word salad are considered more severe.

Cognitive impairment:

Different processing speeds

Verbal learning and memory issues

Visual learning and memory issues

Reasoning/executive functioning (including attention and working memory) issues

Verbal comprehension problems

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In the latest podcast, Dr. Cummings and I talked about antipsychotics, the particular branch of psychopharmacology that deals with medicines that treat psychotic experiences and other mental disorders, such as:

Schizophrenia

Severe depression

Severe anxiety

Bipolar disorder

Psychosis exhibiting hallucinations and delusions

For blog and detailed notes and citations from the episode: here

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