Paranoia: The 21st Century Fear - Hardcover

Dr, Daniel Freeman is a Wellcome Trust Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, and a consultant clinical psychologist in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He is one of the worlds leading researchers on paranoia, publishing in the major psychiatry and psychology journals. Jason Freeman is a writer and editor. Together with Daniel Freeman and Philippa Garety, he is co-author of Overcoming Paranoid and Suspicious Thoughts, the first self-help book for people affected by suspicious thoughts.

*Starred Review* In a recent experiment, psychologist Daniel Freeman used a virtual-reality mock-up of a ride on the London Underground to probe his research subjects’ suspicious thoughts about strangers. Noting that those individuals who were often anxious or who have negative feelings about themselves and others were more likely to jump to unsubstantiated negative conclusions about their copassengers on the (virtual) Tube, Daniel was able to gain insight into the relatively high frequency of paranoid thoughts or “persecutory delusions” in  today’s society. With this selection, Daniel and his brother, journalist Jason Freeman, summarize this and other research in one of the first works on paranoia intended for lay readers. Their intent is largely to demystify a psychological phenomenon that may be as subtle and ubiquitous as depression. Noting connections between delusional thinking, social alienation, and stress, the authors also suggest that paranoia may be to some extent an epiphenomenon of modern urban life in unstable times. It’s an unsettling diagnosis, but it need not compound our worries: mild paranoiac tendencies, they suggest, can be successfully contained through cognitive behavioral techniques such as those described in a self-help guide by the same authors, Overcoming Paranoid and Suspicious Thoughts (2008). --Brendan Driscoll