Paranoia
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- A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution
- Extreme, irrational distrust of others
Paranoia is an excessive anxiety or fear concerning one's own well-being which is considered irrational and excessive, perhaps to the point of being a psychosis. This typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a likely threat. In the original Greek, παράνοια (paranoia) means simply madness (para = outside; nous = mind) and it is this use which was traditionally used in psychiatry to describe any delusional state. However, the exact use of the term has changed over time in medicine, and because of this, modern psychiatric usage may vary. Paranoia is distinct from phobias where there is an irrational and persistent fear (generally without blame) of certain situations, objects, animals, activities, or social settings. By contrast, the paranoid person blames and/or fears intelligent beings for their supposedly intentional actions.
See also
- Paranoiac knowledge
- Delusional disorder
- Distrust
- Ideas of reference
- Monomania
- Paranoid personality disorder
- Pronoia (psychology)
- Schizophrenia
Paranoia in fiction
- The Conversation - a film by Francis Ford Coppola which explores paranoia
