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By Martin Kantor MD Understanding Paranoia: A Guide for Professionals, Families, and Sufferers [Paperback]
In this book, the author takes the reader inside the minds of people who are experiencing delusions of persecution ranging from thinking others are "out to get" them to falsely believing they have physical illness. Kantor also explains to us other facets of the Paranoid Personality, including suspiciousness, hypersensitivity, extreme vigilance, simmering anger, and a tendency to blame others for and absolve oneself of almost everything. As Kantor explains, the term "paranoid" should not be used as a hurtful epithet. "Paranoid individuals are no more or less evil than persons with any other emotional disorder, or for that matter, persons with a physical disorder. Paranoia is a disorder of the mind, not a flaw of character," says Kantor.
- GenresNonfictionPsychology
Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 10, 2024
I knew a man. He was intelligent, handsome, wealthy, athletic; possessed of charisma for days. Conversations would stop when he walked into a room. And when the chatter started up again you could be certain it was all about him. I used to think, because this is who I am, that it must be tough to live that life. To be the flame among moths. To be assaulted, constantly, by forced introductions and unearned intimacy. In truth, he did develop his share of eccentricities, paranoia among them. Doctors, he insisted, were all about their financial bottom line. Every second test was unnecessary. Workmen in the home had to be watched all the time - not because they'd steal from you but because they'd create more problems you'd need to pay them an additional amount to repair. In his world no one genuinely liked anyone else; all relationships were transactional. You could see how his many gifts had come to form this bleak perspective. And years went by. And he fell over the edge.
I bought this book because, once he fell over the edge, he looked exactly like the guy on the cover. That's how he looked all the time. I didn't know if he was angry or afraid (do you?), only that every human being who entered his presence had become an issue for him. And he simply couldn't play it off anymore. So maybe there was something to understand here.
Martin Kantor is a psychiatrist who has worked in both academia and private practice. He has written a number of books on a variety of disorders. He seems to believe he has enough experience with paranoia to opine authoritatively upon it. I suspect he probably does - because if there's one thing that man I knew taught me about paranoia it's that it is extremely infectious. And Dr. Kantor appears, on an assortment of levels, to have caught himself a case of it.
According to our author, a person suffering from paranoia is clean-cut, or messy. Odd-looking, or normal in appearance. Chatty, or taciturn. Obvious, or subtle. They are concrete thinkers, or abstract thinkers. He suggests at one point that a woman is paranoid because she will not be forthcoming about what she pays in property taxes. In short, a paranoid person could be anyone. The causes of this condition are equally contrary. Too much attention, or not enough. Too much criticism, or not enough. Too much discipline, or not enough. And when it comes to interacting in a productive way with someone suffering from paranoia? One must be understanding, respectful, accommodating - don't argue with them, or rise to their baiting, or buy into their illogical stance. Essentially, he's advising that you leave all the hard work of interactional negotiation outside the door. And maybe that's the best way to retain contact with those who eschew it, but it sure doesn't seem very helpful to me.
Dr. Kantor also makes use of this forum to take the critics of his former books to task. In several places. Extensively. If there's an axe to grind, he grinds it. He also has some bizarre aversion to feng shui. But here's the thing - just like the man I knew, I found that if I endured all of this contradiction and grudge-delineation, there would come almost out of the blue these pockets of remarkable astuteness. Clear, concise, and impressively on-point observations that fell like rare sunbeams from a depressingly overcast sky.
Some of us balk at having to give up the rewards of being paranoid, such as the sadistic pleasures involved in hurting others and the masochistic pleasures of being mistreated by the great unjust and afterwards getting the sympathy vote. But as many of my patients have found, the rewards of forcing oneself to become counter-paranoid are much greater than the satisfactions to be obtained from having more and more imaginary enemies.
I sometimes think being intelligent makes this affliction so much worse.
I bought this book because, once he fell over the edge, he looked exactly like the guy on the cover. That's how he looked all the time. I didn't know if he was angry or afraid (do you?), only that every human being who entered his presence had become an issue for him. And he simply couldn't play it off anymore. So maybe there was something to understand here.
Martin Kantor is a psychiatrist who has worked in both academia and private practice. He has written a number of books on a variety of disorders. He seems to believe he has enough experience with paranoia to opine authoritatively upon it. I suspect he probably does - because if there's one thing that man I knew taught me about paranoia it's that it is extremely infectious. And Dr. Kantor appears, on an assortment of levels, to have caught himself a case of it.
According to our author, a person suffering from paranoia is clean-cut, or messy. Odd-looking, or normal in appearance. Chatty, or taciturn. Obvious, or subtle. They are concrete thinkers, or abstract thinkers. He suggests at one point that a woman is paranoid because she will not be forthcoming about what she pays in property taxes. In short, a paranoid person could be anyone. The causes of this condition are equally contrary. Too much attention, or not enough. Too much criticism, or not enough. Too much discipline, or not enough. And when it comes to interacting in a productive way with someone suffering from paranoia? One must be understanding, respectful, accommodating - don't argue with them, or rise to their baiting, or buy into their illogical stance. Essentially, he's advising that you leave all the hard work of interactional negotiation outside the door. And maybe that's the best way to retain contact with those who eschew it, but it sure doesn't seem very helpful to me.
Dr. Kantor also makes use of this forum to take the critics of his former books to task. In several places. Extensively. If there's an axe to grind, he grinds it. He also has some bizarre aversion to feng shui. But here's the thing - just like the man I knew, I found that if I endured all of this contradiction and grudge-delineation, there would come almost out of the blue these pockets of remarkable astuteness. Clear, concise, and impressively on-point observations that fell like rare sunbeams from a depressingly overcast sky.
Some of us balk at having to give up the rewards of being paranoid, such as the sadistic pleasures involved in hurting others and the masochistic pleasures of being mistreated by the great unjust and afterwards getting the sympathy vote. But as many of my patients have found, the rewards of forcing oneself to become counter-paranoid are much greater than the satisfactions to be obtained from having more and more imaginary enemies.
I sometimes think being intelligent makes this affliction so much worse.
Read
August 11, 2011The author spends way too much time defending his position rather than making a point. One gets the feeling he's rather paranoid himself with all his talk about how unfairly his works have been mistreated by the press, etc.
July 6, 2024
Hard to read because it had so much depth but "Understanding Paranoia" by Martin Kantor helped me a great deal understand people suffering from paranoia. It will take a couple weeks to read this book min, but lots of info that is helpful.
Some spoilers...
The author of "Understanding Paranoia" highlights that the term "paranoia" itself can be damaging. This label often exacerbates the condition by discouraging paranoid individuals, who are already highly sensitive to criticism, from seeking help. He stresses that paranoid individuals are not more evil than others with emotional disorders, emphasizing, "Paranoia is a disorder of the mind, not a flaw of the character."
The core manifestations of paranoia include extreme hypersensitivity, suspiciousness, and the tendency to blame others for one's own flaws and troubles. This condition often involves a suspicious nature, ideas of reference, illusions, overvalued ideas, and persecutory beliefs. For instance, a paranoid patient might irrationally believe that their surgeon secretly removed their esophagus just to bill Medicare for the procedure.
The author explains that paranoid individuals are often angry, reasoning that their anger is justified by provocation and blaming others for their feelings and actions. When their angry positions are challenged, they rarely apologize. If they do, it is superficial, merely to deflect criticism without any genuine intention of changing their beliefs or behavior. When pressed, they may offer admissions of guilt, but these fall short of real regret or remorse. They may admit they could have handled situations better, but not that they were wrong, leading them to behave the same way in similar future situations.
According to the author, paranoid individuals have little or no insight into themselves and therefore struggle to reality-test their false beliefs. As a result, they fully believe their distorted perceptions of reality. The DSM defines delusions as false beliefs based on incorrect inferences about external reality. These delusions often overwhelm other elements of the psyche, creating uncharacteristic and alien behaviors that can lead to abnormal and violent actions.
Primary delusions appear to be independent of life's events, emerging spontaneously. These delusions make individuals vulnerable to exaggerated suspiciousness. When challenged, patients suffering from primary delusions often respond with, "I know it is so because I know it is so." In contrast, secondary delusions have more obvious antecedents in the person's life. For instance, there are litigious paranoid delusions where individuals feel they have been unjustly treated by the system and believe they deserve compensation. The emotional pain and suffering they experience are disproportionate to any actual harm done to them.
Paranoid personality disorder is characterized by individuals who are generally perverse and pessimistic in nature. They are overly circumspect, evasive, highly suspicious, and prone to blaming others. These individuals are often untrusting, regularly feeling that others are plotting against them or seeking to harm them in some way. Unlike depressed individuals who feel that all is lost due to their own mistakes, paranoid individuals feel that all is lost because others have made many mistakes with them. This externalization of blame further fuels their paranoia and sense of victimization, making it difficult for them to see their own role in their problems.
Paranoia is at the root of much violent behavior, as suggested by several well-publicized incidents of random, unexpected, and seemingly unexplainable violence in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. These violent acts are often committed by paranoid individuals whose mental illness has gone unrecognized because it was mild, at least until the point where the individual snapped. The violence is the product of paranoid rage occurring in individuals with simmering paranoid personality disorders who decompensate into brief but severe acute paranoid psychotic episodes.
Jan Fawcett (1999) emphasizes the paranoid-like belief of violent individuals that the ends justify the means, with an adversary simply being an opponent to be defeated at any cost. This includes the paranoid-like fight-or-flight reaction to perceived danger and the paranoid-like self-justification involved in violence. The element of paranoia contributing to violence is captured in the mindset of "I better get them before they get me."
Tyrone and Snyder (1999) note that a focus on faulty premises can suggest "delusions of persecution." This means that individuals with paranoia may fixate on incorrect assumptions about being targeted or mistreated, leading to persistent feelings of persecution. These delusions can severely distort their perception of reality, causing them to interpret neutral or benign situations as threatening.
Some spoilers...
The author of "Understanding Paranoia" highlights that the term "paranoia" itself can be damaging. This label often exacerbates the condition by discouraging paranoid individuals, who are already highly sensitive to criticism, from seeking help. He stresses that paranoid individuals are not more evil than others with emotional disorders, emphasizing, "Paranoia is a disorder of the mind, not a flaw of the character."
The core manifestations of paranoia include extreme hypersensitivity, suspiciousness, and the tendency to blame others for one's own flaws and troubles. This condition often involves a suspicious nature, ideas of reference, illusions, overvalued ideas, and persecutory beliefs. For instance, a paranoid patient might irrationally believe that their surgeon secretly removed their esophagus just to bill Medicare for the procedure.
The author explains that paranoid individuals are often angry, reasoning that their anger is justified by provocation and blaming others for their feelings and actions. When their angry positions are challenged, they rarely apologize. If they do, it is superficial, merely to deflect criticism without any genuine intention of changing their beliefs or behavior. When pressed, they may offer admissions of guilt, but these fall short of real regret or remorse. They may admit they could have handled situations better, but not that they were wrong, leading them to behave the same way in similar future situations.
According to the author, paranoid individuals have little or no insight into themselves and therefore struggle to reality-test their false beliefs. As a result, they fully believe their distorted perceptions of reality. The DSM defines delusions as false beliefs based on incorrect inferences about external reality. These delusions often overwhelm other elements of the psyche, creating uncharacteristic and alien behaviors that can lead to abnormal and violent actions.
Primary delusions appear to be independent of life's events, emerging spontaneously. These delusions make individuals vulnerable to exaggerated suspiciousness. When challenged, patients suffering from primary delusions often respond with, "I know it is so because I know it is so." In contrast, secondary delusions have more obvious antecedents in the person's life. For instance, there are litigious paranoid delusions where individuals feel they have been unjustly treated by the system and believe they deserve compensation. The emotional pain and suffering they experience are disproportionate to any actual harm done to them.
Paranoid personality disorder is characterized by individuals who are generally perverse and pessimistic in nature. They are overly circumspect, evasive, highly suspicious, and prone to blaming others. These individuals are often untrusting, regularly feeling that others are plotting against them or seeking to harm them in some way. Unlike depressed individuals who feel that all is lost due to their own mistakes, paranoid individuals feel that all is lost because others have made many mistakes with them. This externalization of blame further fuels their paranoia and sense of victimization, making it difficult for them to see their own role in their problems.
Paranoia is at the root of much violent behavior, as suggested by several well-publicized incidents of random, unexpected, and seemingly unexplainable violence in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. These violent acts are often committed by paranoid individuals whose mental illness has gone unrecognized because it was mild, at least until the point where the individual snapped. The violence is the product of paranoid rage occurring in individuals with simmering paranoid personality disorders who decompensate into brief but severe acute paranoid psychotic episodes.
Jan Fawcett (1999) emphasizes the paranoid-like belief of violent individuals that the ends justify the means, with an adversary simply being an opponent to be defeated at any cost. This includes the paranoid-like fight-or-flight reaction to perceived danger and the paranoid-like self-justification involved in violence. The element of paranoia contributing to violence is captured in the mindset of "I better get them before they get me."
Tyrone and Snyder (1999) note that a focus on faulty premises can suggest "delusions of persecution." This means that individuals with paranoia may fixate on incorrect assumptions about being targeted or mistreated, leading to persistent feelings of persecution. These delusions can severely distort their perception of reality, causing them to interpret neutral or benign situations as threatening.
October 9, 2012
Only about halfway through it but it's very eye-opening for me. Considering I can't get anyone local to actually talk to me...never mind the fact that me actually GOING to talk to somebody about this...it's giving me a good grip on my reality. Understanding is the 1st step. I can hopefully make progress soon...
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