Are mental diseases communicable?

In his contribution to the Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront A Legend anthology, a certain John Farrell (writer of a book called Paranoia and Modernity: Cervantes to Rousseau, which I am yet to read) states, in passing, “that suspicion is the most contagious of all attitudes next to simple fear, and that paranoia is the one communicable mental disease.”

Is Farrell here stating a generally accepted consensus, or a minority opinion?

Is paranoia indeed communicable? And if so, is it really true that it is the only mental disease that is?

Depends what you mean, would mass-hysteria count?

Do you mean communicable like the flu, by virus or bacteria? Probably not in the general sense.

Do you mean communicable in the general sense that we say that people get “infected” with fear or paranoia? (Which is what I think was meant in this context, but IAMNApsychatrist).

Yes, certainly. Look at certain groups in US society - rapture-ready Christians; survivalists waiting for the fall of civilisation; tea-baggers fearing death panels and socialism; … people can deliberately spread paranoia and others can get infected if they are weak in their defense.

There’s alsofolie a deux, where someone’s psychosis is shared by healthy partner.

I meant communicable as in “capable of being transmitted from one person to another.”

I meant in the clinical, psychiatric sense of the word.

Now that’s interesting! Found this, from the abstract of a Japanese study on the subject:

Creutzfeldt-Jakob is a communicable mental disease. Most of us don’t have to worry, though. It is transmitted by eating the brains of other humans.

I hope this becomes a zombie thread one day. It’d just be so appropriate.

Liberalism being a mental illness, it would certainly seem to be contagious.

The only cure being complete collapse of civilization. Onward, Tea Party crusaders!

Guys? Would you please do me a big, big favor and keep your partisan bickering out of my thread? Great, thanks, awesome.

[Moderator Note]

hodagg and Mosier, political jabs are not permitted in GQ. Mosier, you in particular have been around long enough to know this. No warning issued, but do not do this again.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

Well, supposedly, insanity is hereditary in that you get it from your kids…

without getting involved in partisan bickering, there is considerable research that shows that political attitudes are learned from neighbors. In particular paranoia can spread like that and, if you consider it a mental illness, then yes it is contagious. But I am nor sure the question really has a factual answer.

We have a general tendency to conform to our local norms. If the local norms are a belief in delusions, be they paranoid or otherwise, then as a general rule most normal people will conform to those beliefs. Of course if that is normative for the locale it is hard to call it “disease” … in that context not sharing in those delusions may be more the disease state …

Truth is that our actual memories change to conform to what we have heard others recall. From the full article on the other side of the wall I think:

Particular perceptions of reality are contagious.

I can has crazy?

Interesting article. Puts “crazy cat lady” in a different perspective.

Also…

This is not totally what the OP is talking about, but I have an involuntary movement disorder. Most times it’s subtle and more like “unvoluntary” than “involuntary” in that I can be “good” if I’m mindful of what I’m doing. However, if I see someone who’s ticcing or stimming, it tends to make me not so good (especially since a bit of echopraxia has entered into my repertoire). I avoid shows featuring people with Tourette’s Syndrome, Parkinson’s, and autism for this reason.

More on mental health contagion. Happiness not so much; but depression and anxiety apparently more so. The contagion of suicidality is well established: not only are familymembers more likely to view suicide as a future option above and beyond any tendency to psychiatric issues in general, but ill-advised media reporting leads to contagion as well.

So as a matter of GQ it is untrue that paranoia is the only contagious mental illness. And I am unclear how contagious paranoia to the level of mental illness (e.g. paranoid personality disorder or paranoid schizophrenia) is as opposed to paranoid tendencies and beliefs, be they racial/group focused or otherwise, are. (Yes, folie à deux occurs, but not commonly. And it is hard to know how “healthy” the “healthy” partner was to start with; there may be some assortive mating by which those with similar tendencies and predispositions may be more likely to marry each other.)

And a bit farther along than monstro’s cat parasite/schizophrenia link is PANDAS wherein strep is hypothesized to trigger off OCD flares in susceptible individuals.

It is possible for children whose parents are depressed to pick up depression too. Does that fits the description of “communicable diseases” ?

Watch this documentary for an extremely interesting (and frightening) case of suspected folie a deux, where two Swedish twins behave extremely bizarrely on one of Britain’s busiest motorways before going completely nuts a few days later.

(Hint: Youtube.)

Fear = Paranoia = Mental disease? Then we are dependent on this particular “mental disease”: Without “fear”, I don’t think humanity would have made it this far.