Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness (The Truman Shoe Delusion and Other Strange Beliefs)

Joel Gold Ian Gold Suspicious Minds How Culture Shapes Madness Free Press (2014) A "clear, witty, and engaging" ( The Boston Globe ) journey through the brain that connects neuroscience, biology, and culture. An "intellectual landmark" (Edward Shorter, Literary Review of Canada ). The current view of delusions—the strange beliefs held by people with schizophrenia and other psychiatric illnesses—is that they are the result of biology gone awry, of neurons in the brain misfiring. In Suspicious Minds, Dr. Joel Gold and his brother Ian Gold argue that delusions are the result of the interaction between the brain and the social world. They present "a dual broadside: against a psychiatric profession that has become infatuated with neuroscience as part of its longstanding attempt to establish itself as 'real medicine,' and against a culture that has become too networked for its own good" ( The New York Times ). The book "amounts to nothing less than a frontal—or perhaps pre-frontal—challenge to the dominant view of modern psychiatry, which looks to neuroscience to explain disorders of the mind" ( The Washington Post ). In "a droll Oliver Sacksian tone" (The Village Voice), the Golds reveal intriguing case studies : the man who was dead and in hell, the woman who could raise the dead at Ground Zero, the man who killed God, and the people who believed they were like the characters in the film The Truman Show. These "page-turning case studies" ( New Republic ) of delusion "offer a fascinating and intimate portrait of psychosis" ( Scientific American ). "They provide more proof that no fantasist can hope to match the wonders—and horrors—of the human mind" ( The Washington Post ). Dedication......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 7 Authorship Note......Page 10 A Note on the Patients......Page 11 A Note on “Psych” Words......Page 12 Epigraph......Page 13 Preface: The Truman Show Delusion......Page 14 Part I: The Sleep of Reason......Page 28 1. A Short History of Madness......Page 29 James Tilly Matthews: The Air Loom......Page 39 Donald: Depression and Damnation......Page 53 Louis: Hell on Earth......Page 67 2. One Hundred Years of Delusion......Page 72 Friedrich Krauss: A Hot Metal Disk......Page 81 Ruby: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go......Page 97 How Does It Feel?......Page 106 Truman Revisited:......Page 114 David: Unreality Show......Page 115 Lori: Charley’s Mom......Page 117 Ethan: The Otherness of Other People......Page 121 Part II: The Social Life of Madness......Page 127 3. The Madding Crowd......Page 128 Samir: Poking Around the Brain......Page 142 Jada: Very Pregnant......Page 150 Jane: The Queen......Page 164 4. Hell Is Other People......Page 170 John: The Academic......Page 180 Do Delusions Foster Violence?......Page 192 Calvin: Othello in New York......Page 198 5. Belief Unhinged......Page 205 Simone: The Pope......Page 211 When Life Imitates Art......Page 220 Lawrence: Artificial Intelligence......Page 228 6. Beyond Belief......Page 233 Benjamin: Misperceptions......Page 235 Benjamin: Building Trust......Page 240 Kevin: The Olympian......Page 248 About the Authors......Page 260 Notes......Page 263 Bibliography......Page 288 Figure Sources......Page 320 Index......Page 322 Copyright......Page 351 What if you woke up with the alarming suspicion that you were being watched' One day in 2003, a patient unlike any other that Dr. Joel Gold had seen before was admitted to his unit at Bellevue Hospital. This man claimed he was being filmed constantly and that his life was being broadcast around the world like The Truman Show, the 1998 film depicting a man who is unknowingly living out his life as the star of a popular soap opera. Over the next few years, Dr. Gold saw a number of patients suffering from what he and his brother, Dr. Ian Gold, began calling the "Truman Show delusion," launching them on a quest to understand the nature of this particular phenomenon, of delusions more generally, and of madness itself. The current view of delusions is that they are the result of biology gone awry, of neurons in the brain misfiring. In contrast, the Golds argue that delusions are the result of the interaction between the brain and the social world. By exploring the major categories of delusion through fascinating case studies and marshaling the latest research in schizophrenia, the brothers reveal the role of culture and the social world in the development of psychosis - delusions in particular. Suspicious Minds presents a groundbreaking new vision of just how dramatically our surroundings can influence our brains "Combining extraordinary true stories with the latest research, Joel and Ian Gold take us on a wild journey through the delusional brain to explore the intersection of neuroscience, biology, and culture "-- Résumé de l'éditeur "Combining extraordinary true stories with the latest research, Joel and Ian Gold take us on a wild journey through the delusional brain to explore the intersection of neuroscience, biology, and culture."-- Provided by publisher