As human being we are affected by our surroundings and other people all the time. Allthough we may think we are safe from influences, we are not. Of course I'm not talking about mental illness as something physically contagious. ........... But how common is it that people who hang around mentally ill people develop mental illness themselves after a while? Is there any documentation of how many psychologists that have gone crazy themselves? Yes, the word is that psyhcologists become psychologists to cure their own mental illnesses, but are there any testings done before they get "licensed" that they do not have a mental illness? And are psychologists tested on a regular basis for this too? But what if in a workplace where the same people walk around for years they stop recognizing mental illness syndromes and consider them normal? And what if you hang around on a forum all day with deranged people, will you not be affected and become like them after a while too? Does this not scare you? Not at all?...Damn, I have lost my powers. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I think there is some truth behind this idea though, that you become like the people you associate with.
If you don't have mental illness, you can only replicate the external behavior, not the actual condition.
Yeah, look at all the old people, how they look after years and years of frowning. If you scrunch your face into a knot for like one hour it will probably stay like that for one more hour even if you stop scrunching.
No, you can't get mental illness by contact - partly because there are so many different kinds of mental illness, the symptoms of one being incompatible with another. While the basic kinds of illness are present in the human population at all times, and probably the same percent of people are susceptible to each kind, every culture and era has its own trends. That is, the percentage who actually succumb to each kind, how many are diagnosed as ill (or mad or inhabited by a deamon or pixillated) and how the illness presents. In that sense, you do catch it from your social environment. Every nation in each period asks its citizens the old punch-line: "What do you believe, me or your eyes?" Parents in each society and time period tell children a particular set of lies that the children are punished for contradicting or questioning, in spite of the evidence of their senses and logic. We drive them crazy in a particular system, so a particular kind of craziness will dominate each geographical region in each generation.
But I now realize there is something called mass psychosis, like the medieval outbreaks of laughing or dancing. But I think that's cultural, it doesn't change the brain permanently.
Wrong, mental health nurses and other HCP do some simulation work around depression and according to the lecturer who was giving us our training who is a mental health nurse it's quite common for this simulation to CAUSE depression in the healthy unill students. Basically it's the oposite of cognitive behavioural therapy Beb it's quite well known that knowing someone who has commited suicide massively increases the chances you will attempt it yourself wether they were directly related or not so yes some mental illnesses specifically the mood disorders could have a "contagious" factor
Being around a depressed person might be depressing, but if they were to kill themselves, I can't see a normal person jumping on that bandwagon and doing the same thing, and if for some they did kill themselves, I would need a great deal more proof that they were really normal before the first suicide incident happened. Next, many people consider sociopaths to be a form of mental illness. I don't see it that way at all. They are born that way and can't be cured anymore than a gay person can be cured. It's not contagious, but if you get close to one your very likely to have a lot of regrets in store for you.
http://m.psychologytoday.com/articles/200307/is-depression-contagious http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=4539059 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2978/Is-depression-catching.html http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/154/2/120.full.pdf
Kind of what I said. depressed people can bring you down, especially if you live with them, but if they off themselves you are not very likely to follow suit. But this topic just says mental illness, and that takes in a lot more than just depression.
If two people are in love and one kills themselves the other lover could also do the same thinking they couldn't live without the others love and companionship. This isn't that uncommon especially when you get older.
That isn't illness; that's a decision not to live in certain circumstances; it's not transmitted, either. I don't think being sad or pessimistic is an illness. Mass hysteria isn't illness; it's a social phenomenon. Next day, you couldn't diagnose any of the participants individually. Do we really know what does constitute a mental illness.
I think normally, therefore I associate with my self. Others who think normally associate with themselves. Any cross-referenced associations made by two or more (coincidentally, a church--evidently you can't get a church license if you're just talking to yourself--sounds kind of intolerant). Anyways, social conversing is still using thinking pathways. I have more ideas come to me, when I throw a few away out there. "There" being the group therapy session, the blog-sphere, the neighbor... The point being, people with issues stick out like people who don't have issues. People who think they have issues, but really don't, stick out as well. Same with people who don't see they have issues...as well. One can live with mental illness 24/7, like an adult can live with children 24/7. Meaning we need a break with "our kind".
Right. Who defines abnormalities? The commonplace? But oddly enough, only the "abnormal" can cleverly define the ordinary—without having to resort to a goddamn "illness".
It is normal to look in the mirror, and not see ourselves as others see us. There's a large gaping window of wiggle-room in the definition(s) of normality.
