paranoia

[srk]

Hey how do you explain Paranoia to a lay man?

[admin]

I will say paronia means you become suspicious about someone or something. For example, one might think people are following him and trying to get him. Another example of paranoia is that one might think there is some conspiracy going on against him or her.

[John Allman]

I will say paronia means you become suspicious about someone or something. For example, one might think people are following him and trying to get him. Another example of paranoia is that one might think there is some conspiracy going on against him or her.
The above definition would appear to lead to the automatic diagnosis of paranoia in every aware victim of criminal stalking.

[khassa]

Paranoia is a thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself.

[John Allman]

Paranoia is a thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion.
Does that mean that a hasty and mistaken diagnosis must have been made, if somebody is diagnosed as "paranoid" half an hour or so after meeting a psychiatrist for the first time, when everybody who knows them well testifies that, far from showing excessive anxiety or fear, to the point of irrationality, they are actually exceptionally courageous people, and far more rational in their thinking than most people are?