Abnormal Psych

Don't you love it? Rhetorical question on, say, schizophrenia:

Let's cite a case, where Adam thinks he works for the CIA, and that everyone is trying to expose him. They've bugged his house, his car, etc. etc. Whenever he goes to a mental hospital, he is astounded that they know he's hearing voices, but he figures they must hve bugged his room as well. Etc. Paranoid schizophrenia.

My question: Is this man crazy?

To begin, let me reiterate the criteria for diagnosing schizotypal disorders that I find most important: essentially, exhibiting a break from reality - and take from there what you will. Etc.

Now, let me start of with a familiar point. Let's look at Descarte's "dream theory", or for that matter, any theory along those lines. How can you be certain that you will not wake up at any point to a life completely different; your life and everything you know simply being a dream - with the universe an adjacent construct or figment of your imagination? How can you know that when you die, you'll simply wake up, realize your whole "life" was a dream you had one night, cry for a few seconds over its beauty until you forget about it forever.

Now let's say this really hits you and you realize "Holy shit, I can't be certain of anything. What is reality?" and from there you can't get past that, you can't put it to rest that reality is simply an arbitrary concept at any given moment and you, skipping ahead (I'm sorry, Sartre), you simply are at a place where other's find you insane for the very same reason (you have broken with reality).

I think anyone is capable of this, and everyone's reality is different from everyone elses' reality, so...to one person, everyone else really is insane and one's opinion of those people is really based on [to what effect they have on you]. So, is any one person really more insane than another? No. Should they be confined, be forced to seek help? It all depends on how much they pose a disturbance to your idealized expectation of life, rather than actually helping them. If I thought reality was a joke, the last thing I'd want was for someone to "help" bring me back to "reality". I have my own feelings on that matter.

So, criteria for diagnosing someone as insane is variable. It is not stepped in actual criteria from the mind of the examined, but rather as an extension of unconsciously exerting our will over others - something which I do not decry, since it is unavoidable, and wish more people would take account for. Life, just as sociality as I mentioned in an earlier post, is a constant fight of wills.