Not that I’m any type of health professional and that most of my knowledge of psychosis comes from new stories and tv shows, but here’s what I would give a go (even though I’d probably wind up getting myself killed).
I’d start writhing around screaming that they’re going to get me! I can see them coming! etc. My sole intention being to get him to believe that I’m in the exact same position he’s in and can help him fight them off. Once I’m a comrade, get him to arm me, then bye bye captor.
Spike his drink with some Risperidone, problem solved. 
How about telling him that you don’t see what he is seeing and are afraid that he will hurt you, himself or someone else, and ask him if there is a way out without bad things happening?
Except for the first part, just telling someone you are afraid that someone is going to get hurt, and are looking for a way out, has helped me out of a lot of tense situations. I ‘m not sure if it will work with someone who is having a psychotic episode though……
Without going with the extreme scenario of the OP, I often wondered how to deal with delusional people.
A friend of mine was schizophrenic. I could deal with odd conversations or concepts, but I had a harder time when he was talking about the various conspiracies against him. Especially when, in a couple of cases, he thought I was part of said conspiracy.
Trying to discuss logically? Letting him talk and listen? Ignoring some blatantly crazy elements of his scenarios while trying to convince him that he was probably wrong about some other part (because acting on this particular element might have more detrimental consequences)?
Yes, paranoid schizophrenics who are not taking medication are rather dangerous.
Your best chance is to agree with him and humanize yourself to him. Try to make him think you are on his side. Ask him questions about what he sees and believes and try to get his confidence. Takes some good acting. I have read more than one story where this worked. One woman being raped by a mass murder talked him into not killing her that way. As soon as he left she called the police, they caught him before he left the building. Then there was this kidnapped kid who showed so much concern for his kidnapper that the napper returned the kid and turned himself in to the police.
Uh, do you know anything about mental illness, lekatt? :dubious:
Majored in psychology, worked in a hospital, sometimes in the psyche ward, helped many who have been diagnosed mentally ill back to living a normal life.
Probably don’t count, you just want to criticize thinking you know more, and maybe you do.
Talk to him, earn his confidence, bludgeon him to death at first opportunity.
The easiest answer is to buy a gun before this happens and carry it around you. Once he’s looking the other way blow his head off.
I don’t know that I agree. I might feel more confident with a delusiional person who thinks God is speaking to him. Perhaps I could quote scripture with him and convince him I am repentant and deserve to live. Still, I don’t know that I’d have better luck than with your run of the mill kidnapper cum killer.
LIttle kids are always scared of something and as long as MOm or Dad is there to comfort them they will be fine. I don’t think this type of “magic” is going to work on a deranged person. Kids are dumb. Criminals are dumb and dangerous. Talking people out of doing shit to you only works in the movies.
Sixty people have been murdered by schizophrenics in the U.K. in the last three years.
I’d be scared of them,not because I wouldn’t know what to expect from them but because they might kill me.
For God’s sake, Kenneth—just tell him the damned frequency!
Or you could just say “Look, Ninjas!” and then head butt him and run away.