The Paranoid Group

The book El grupo paranoide was published by Ediciones Experiencia in 2005. Since then I have never stopped revisiting it, again and again. Haltingly, I have added new observations and reflections, and have tried to improve the clarity of exposition. The text offered here is the result of that effort.

Paranoid behavior is intrinsically a social phenomenon.

Even in the smallest paranoid group of all, that of a single individual, there is at all times a potential for growth.

The aim of the book is to convey five simple ideas:

1. There exists a “paranoid behavior” that manifests not only in various psychiatric disorders, but can be activated, transiently, in any human being.
2. Today the term paranoid/paranoia is equated with distrust and ideas of harm and persecution. However, it would be worthwhile to recover the considerably broader meaning initially given to it by classical authors.
3. Paranoid behavior is contagious. Paranoid groups are those in which intense reciprocal contagion occurs among their members. In this transmission, the group leader usually plays a primary role.

4. Once collective contagion has been set in motion, paranoid activation will manifest in:

   a) The actions and characteristics of the group, taken as a being with a life of its own.

   b) The individual behavior of each of its members.

5. Paranoid contagion can occur in very small human groups — a family, for example — as well as in larger ones, and can affect large societies as a whole.

The book is structured in three parts.

The first introduces the concept of the paranoid contagion group, for which it is essential to first refer to “paranoid behavior”, understood as an individual phenomenon.

The second part presents the cases that have been studied and that have served to describe the characteristics common to all paranoid contagion groups (PCG). Before beginning the description of what PCGs are like, it is necessary to specify which or who they are.

The third part, the most extensive, is devoted to the detailed description of the characteristics of paranoid contagion groups and the changes they induce in individuals.