Paranoia: causes and signs of this type of delusional thinking.

Some people see signs of a conspiracy or espionage everywhere.

Paranoia is one of the concepts associated with mental disorders that have to do with delusions, i.e., delusional that have to do with delusions, i.e., wild ideas that are believed in with an intensity that goes beyond what is reasonable.

Due to its striking and enigmatic nature, paranoia, as a phenomenon, has aroused the interest of many people who have come to use the term as another component of their vocabulary, applicable to day-to-day situations experienced with friends, family and acquaintances. However, it should be borne in mind that it is a concept from the clinical field of psychology and psychiatry, and is used only in very specific cases. Let's see what it really consists of.

What is paranoia?

Paranoia is a style of thinking associated with mental disorders that is characterized by the characterized by the shaping of self-referential delusions.. That means that whoever expresses paranoid behavior has a tendency to believe that everything that happens and of which he is aware is given because of the same fact, a truth that usually tries to be hidden by mysterious entities (supernatural or not) but that one is able to see oneself.

For example, the belief that someone is inserting encrypted messages in television commercials to brainwash us is a delusion very typical of this kind of mental state. Other examples: there is someone listening to us through electrical outlets, we are being followed by a pigeon with a microphone hidden among its feathers, etc.

The delusions of persecution are typical of paranoia.The term "paranoia" is a relatively loose term, since, by recognizing all kinds of clues in the details of what surrounds us, we come to the conclusion that there is someone very interested in following our steps in a discreet way, camouflaging their trail very well.

It should be noted that although the use of the term "paranoia" is relatively loose and refers to a type of thinking and behavior, in practice it usually refers to the delusional disorder, or paranoid psychosisa type of disorder related to the group of disorders close to schizophrenia.

Functioning of this delusional thinking

The basic characteristics of paranoia are the following.

1. Hostility, defensiveness and persecutory mania.

People expressing paranoia constantly see reasons to trust almost no oneThis is because anyone could be a potential attacker or spy. This, in addition, makes it very complicated to attend to these people from the clinical field in the most serious cases.

2. Adoption of protection routines

Although it is not given in all the cases of paranoia, it is very frequent that the person adopts certain habits and characteristic routines whose purpose is only defense against external threats. For example, wrapping one's head in aluminum foil is a popular choice among those who believe that their thoughts can be "read" or "stolen" by someone.

3. Cognitive rigidity

Another major difference between paranoia and other types of mental states unrelated to disorders is that the former is based on a distinct cognitive rigidity, or inability to self-correct.

When the predictions based on the delusions are not fulfilled, another explanation is simply sought, whose only requirement has to be that it does not go against the main idea that structures the paranoia.

That means that, as long as this criterion is met, the new explanations can be as convoluted and unreasonable as the others.

The causes of paranoia

Paranoia is one of the symptoms associated with psychosis, but this fact alone does not say much about its causes. In fact, as a symptom paranoia may be due to different types of mental disturbance or due to purely neurological problems. There are different theories that try to account for why this thought pattern appears.

1. Occurrence due to learning and contingencies

Environmental and social influences can cause thousands of people to express paranoid patterns without becoming part of very severe clinical cases. Various conspiracy theoriesfor example, can be understood as explanatory schemes that resist all kinds of evidence to the contrary and that, on the other hand, are based on an entity (physical or organizational), which has its own political and economic interests, as well as the power to manipulate at will what happens on the planet.

Thus, indoctrination and integration in some social circles can, by themselves, make people get used to think through paranoia or something very close to it.

2. By disorder and clinical complications

Normally, our ability to think and create abstract concepts is conceived as an ability that makes us intelligent beings, highly prepared to adapt to new challenges. The flexibility of our cognition allows us to usually find innovative solutions no matter how changing the environment is.

How do we manage to cope so well with these variable and to some extent unpredictable situations? To do so, we automatically use one of the capacities in which we are most adept thanks to the fact that we possess a highly developed brain: the ability to recognize patterns and regularities in all kinds of stimuli.. Thanks to this ability, we bring order to what would otherwise be a chaos of perceptions and memories.

Moreover, this reorganization of information takes place both in the more concrete aspects of perception and with the more abstract concepts, the ideas through which we interpret reality by means of what are known as schemas. through what are known as cognitive schemas. For example, it is very easy, and even automatic, to detect patterns of musicality in certain sounds, or to recognize faces where there are only spots, but it is also common to recognize intentions in the actions of others.

Paranoia is what happens when this ability to recognize underlying ideas and perceptions that underlie all others becomes pathological, a sign that we impose a very forced account to explain reality, instead of assuming that we cannot anticipate everything and limit ourselves to experience our experiences, assuming that there will always be doubts to be resolved.

Thus, certain mental disorders can alter the functioning of cognitive processes that already exist in every human being. that already exist in every human being can "overreach", although it is not known how this happens.

3. Due to brain failure

Some brain lesions may be related to specific types of paranoid thinking. Capgras syndrome, for example, consists of a tendency to believe that friends and relatives have been replaced by other people physically identical to the former, and is believed to be caused by damage to the connections between the limbic system and areas of the cerebral cortex.