October 1, 2007, and London is in the grip of another terrorism alert.
Shoppers in Soho are sparked into panic by a strange noxious-smelling cloud.
Suspecting the capital is under chemical attack, the emergency services
evacuate the area. Meanwhile, firefighters wearing breathing apparatus
search for the source of the stench.
This eventually turns out to be the Thai Cottage restaurant where, until he'd
been asked to leave his kitchen, chef Chalemchai Tangjariyapoon had been
midway through preparing a batch of nam prik pao. “It's a spicy dip with
extra hot chillies that are deliberately burnt,” he said later. “When we
came back at 7.30pm we saw the door had been smashed and there were fire
brigade and police outside. I was a bit scared but they were very nice about
it.”
Should you wish to have a go at making the dip, you will need charred
chillies, garlic flakes, dried shrimps, palm sugar, shrimp paste, tamarind,
and vegetable oil. But then again, given Mr Tangjariyapoon's experience, you
might prefer to let the experts handle it. Provided they still dare.
Because, as the staff of the Thai Cottage know only too well, right now
we're more than a little jumpy. Threats seem to loom at us from all
quarters. And of course sometimes it's right to be cautious. Dodgy bankers,
muggers, terrorists, paedophiles, rapists, malicious colleagues, gossips,
spies, and blackmailers - none of these is entirely the figment of our
fevered imaginations.
The trick, of course, is to keep a sense of perspective, recognising that
these kinds of dangers are rare and taking that on into a calm and measured
assessment of risk.
When we look at the data on rates of paranoia, however, it appears that many
of us are finding that trick increasingly difficult to pull off. At any one
time, around a quarter of the population are having regular paranoid
thoughts. Our fears have got the better of us, and the 21st century begins
to look like a new age of paranoia. How did we get to this point? Why is
paranoia so prevalent in society? And how does it work on an individual
level?
Paranoia is defined as the unfounded belief that someone is out to hurt us.
There are a number of trends that point to a likely rise in paranoia such as
social isolation and the tendency of the media to highlight the sensational
and scary (such as the vast number of jobs likely to be axed as a result of
the economic crisis): all these factors can raise our levels of anxiety,
thereby preparing the ground for paranoia to thrive.
Indeed, it may be that the kind of consumer capitalism we see in countries
like the UK, US, and Australia predisposes us to suspicious thoughts (though
it goes without saying that paranoia has also often led a full and extremely
active life in Communist countries). An emphasis on individual economic
success can encourage us to see other people as competitors and potential
threats.
And what would the world of business be without competitiveness? “When it
comes to business, I believe in the value of paranoia ... The more
successful you are, the more people want a chunk of your business and then
another chunk and then another until there is nothing left,” says Andrew S.
Grove, former president and CEO at the computing giant Intel. Believing that
competitors want to take your business isn't fantasy: it's the nature of the
game. And yet this kind of aggressive, candidly hostile capitalism
nonetheless seems to play to our paranoid tendencies.
Trust in authority has broken down
Finally, trust in authority seems largely to have broken down. We now
positively expect our leaders to lie to us. Barely a week goes by, it seems,
without another cover-up or scandal being dragged kicking and screaming into
the light. Conspiracy theories multiply.
This week, for example, we were told that some dentists are inviting healthy
patients for check-ups in order to maximise their profits. These kinds of
issues play a big role in paranoia, but they're only one element. In fact,
we believe paranoia is caused by the subtle interaction of four factors:
unexpected experiences or events; our emotions; our previous experiences;
the way we reason.
Paranoia is essentially a failure of interpretation. Or, in the words of
American comedian Emo Phillips: “I was walking home one night and a guy
hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In Morse code.”
Understanding what's going on around us can sometimes be tricky. And it's not
made any easier by the fact that we can never know for sure what someone
else is thinking. That leaves plenty of leeway for our imagination to get to
work on, say, a glance in our direction, or an overheard snatch of
conversation. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, human beings abhor ambiguity.
Ignorance isn't an option. We want an explanation for the strange way we're
feeling, or the smile on our boss's face when we passed her in the corridor.
For some of us, that explanation may be a paranoid one. So our boss is
really feigning friendliness, trying to mask what she really thinks of us.
But why should some people be more prone to this kind of misinterpretation
than others? The explanation lies somewhere deep in the mix of our previous
experiences, social and economic influences, our emotional state, our
memories, personality, and reasoning style. And of all these influences,
it's our emotions that are key.
Worry magnifies and entrenches our fears
Anxiety, in particular, is intimately connected to paranoia. Both are
concerned with the anticipation of danger. In the case of paranoia, that
danger is seen (albeit mistakenly) as coming from other people. And just as
anxiety feeds off worry, so too does paranoia. Worry makes us dwell on our
fears, magnifying and entrenching them. This is especially true for people
whose previous experiences have led them to feel negatively about
themselves, other people, and the world in general. After all, if you see
yourself as weak and vulnerable, and other people as cruel and dangerous, it
doesn't require too much of a leap of imagination to start thinking that
people might want to harm you. Our suspicious thoughts are simply an
extension of our anxieties. And here's where we slot in the last of the
paranoid puzzle: the way we reason.
Some of us are more prone to jump to conclusions on the flimsiest of evidence
than others. The more we're given to these types of reasoning, the more
severely we're likely to be troubled by paranoid thoughts. Once we start
thinking there's some truth to our suspicions, we start behaving differently
too. We might adopt safety behaviours or change the way we act with other
people, becoming nervous or upset, secretive, or even hostile.
Look at the feelings of Amanda, a 28-year-old librarian, who said: “I hate
social events. I'm convinced no one wants to talk to me, that they're all
laughing at me and wondering why I'm there at all.”
Although Amanda's anxieties could be taken for shyness or social anxiety,
they're actually much closer to paranoia - and here's why. Shyness and
social anxiety may make us think the other dinner-party guests won't like
us, but we don't assume they deliberately want to make us feel bad. If our
host forgets to offer us another glass of wine, we might conclude that she
has neglected us for other more engaging friends. But we don't think she's
letting us go thirsty on purpose. Paranoia, on the other hand, is all about
believing others intend to do us down. But remember, they rarely are. Shrug
off the paranoid thoughts, ask for another glass of wine, and drink it with
pleasure.
© Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman 2008. Extracted from Paranoia: The 21st
Century Fear, published by Oxford University Press on October 24 at £9.99.
It is available at £9.49, free p&p, from Times Books First. Phone
0870 1608080; timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy
Dr Daniel Freeman is a Wellcome Trust Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry,
King's College London. Jason Freeman, his brother, is a writer, editor, and
co-author of Overcoming Paranoid and Suspicious Thoughts
How to fight back against the fear
Become a detached observer of your fears
You can't hope to tackle your paranoia unless you get some perspective on it.
Understand what causes paranoia
Like all fears, paranoia loses much of its power if you know what's causing
it. Stressful life events are a key cause.
Don't just accept your suspicious thoughts
Instead of taking them at face value, challenge these thoughts, weighing up
the evidence for and against, and seeking out alternative explanations for
the way you're feeling.
Ask yourself:
Is there anything that might suggest the paranoid thought could be wrong?
What would I say to a friend who came to me with a similar problem?
Are there alternative explanations for what seems to have happened?
If I was feeling happier, would I still think of things in the same way?
Are my past experiences getting in the way of me seeing the present situation
clearly?
Let go of your suspicious thoughts
Everyone has these kind of thoughts. And they can sometimes play a crucial
role in keeping us safe. It's unrealistic to think we can put a stop to
them; don't fight your thoughts, but don't spend time thinking about them.
Remind yourself that it doesn't matter, and let it go off into the distance.
Reduce the time you spend worrying
Worrying makes everything worse, including paranoia.
