I'm writing a story where one of my main characters has a phobia of a color that is associated with highly negative things in their society. First, is this plausible, and second, how would their reactions differ from someone who simply is unnerved by the color due to its negative connotation?

Yes, it’s plausible - phobias can be of anything, and the fact that it’s already associated with bad things in said society makes it more likely (verses any other random color).

Generally, the difference between a phobia and disliking something is the extent and intensity of your character’s reaction. Someone who dislikes the color might say “Ew,” but move on with their life. A specific phobia would more likely involve your character fleeing the color, or even going to great lengths to avoid the color in the first place.

Another difference is that being exposed to that color can result in your character having panic attacks, which produce physical symptoms (see here for some examples of what that could look like).

There is no exact cut off point between disliking something and having a phobia - it’s on a spectrum. For it to qualify as a phobia, however, your character needs to be suffering from serious distress and/or their life needs to be negatively impacted by their fear.

Hope that helps!

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scriptshrink

vorpalgirl asked:

What differentiates Major Depression from just "depression"? I used to think it was whether you had the urge to hurt yourself, but since you've said that's not always the case, now I'm wondering where the real line is.

There are a couple big differences between Major Depression and “depression”.

Frequency & Duration

In Major Depression, the depressive symptoms need to happen most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks.

That’s not saying that depressed people can never feel happy, because some can and do. But feeling good is not the norm for them, and they go back to feeling depressed when the happiness fades.

Impairment

With Major Depression, the character needs to experience distress due to their symptoms OR their life has been negatively affected in some way by their depressive symptoms.

For instance, someone who is a bit sad would still be able to go through their lives pretty much as normal, even though they’re feeling crappy. Someone who has Major Depression struggles significantly in at least one area of their lives.

Some examples of struggles a depressed character could have:

The character ends up getting bad grades due to not turning in their homework (because it’ll never be “good enough”)
The character gets fired because they’ve been too tired to make it into work.
The character stops seeing their friends, because they feel like nobody wants to be around them.
The character never makes plans for their future, because they see it as hopeless.
The character forgets about filing their taxes, and it takes them weeks to complete them once they remember because they feel so bad about it.

Hope that helps!

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scriptshrink reblogged

scripttorture

Anonymous asked:

What kind of torture methods would be used to change one's way of thinking? Like if you want to "reprogram" them to act differently then they normally do, or to trick them into thinking that they enjoy something when they actually don't (like tricking someone into becoming a serial killer) or say a certain phrase when faced with a certain situation? I need this for a book I'm writing and if you know the answer, it would really help.

scripttorture answered:

I cancategorically and absolutely say that this is impossible.

Americaninstitutions actually sunk a fair amount of money into psychological‘treatments’ designed to do exactly this sort of thing. None of them worked.

There isno torture or psychological technique that can ‘reprogram’ a person or ‘force’them to respond a certain way to stimulus.

It doesnot exist.

There are types of torture that seem to bemore likely to give the victims mental health problems. But how those problemsmanifest and what exactly affects each individual is not something a torturercan control. It’s very much down to chance.

Sometortures that are more likely to cause serious mental health problems aresolitary confinement, sensory deprivation, long term sleep deprivation andabuses aimed at undermining the victim’s identity. None of these are guaranteedto cause mental illness and some people are remarkably resistant to them.Nelson Mandela survived extremely long periods of solitary confinement withlittle ill-effect, but he is the exception rather than the rule.

Atorturer might be able to give theirvictim PTSD, but what you’re asking is like trying to control what specificflashbacks the victim gets and when those flashbacks happen. It is, so far aswe know, not just unlikely but impossible.

Similarlyyou can’t trick a person into believing they enjoy something they don’t.

You can trick a person into believing theycommitted a crime when they didn’t and many false confessions are gained inthis way.

So, touse your serial killer example: your character could be tricked into believingthey murdered someone when they did not. But your character couldn’t be forcedby torture to become a serial killer. They also couldn’t be tortured intobelieving they enjoy killing if that’s not the case.

It’s alittle like expecting you can make someone like apples by hitting them on thehead. I’m sure if you hit them enough they might say they like apples to make you stop, but that’s not the same thingas actually suddenly liking apples.

Considerwhy it’s important to your story that the character is ‘reprogrammed’ ratherthan, for example, acting because someone they care about is threatened orbecause they believe that refusing to do what their torturers want would getthem killed. Why can’t your character be acting under duress? Why do they have to be ‘reprogrammed’?

I’m notsure what else to suggest for your story. Thisis something that torture just doesn’t do and I’d encourage you to reconsiderusing this trope. It’s got no basis in reality and it’s dangerous, it’s the sort of narrative device that getsused to justify torture.

Disclaimer

scriptshrink

CW: trauma, rape mention

Going off what @scripttorture said, there is no way to reliably “make” someone develop any mental illness. I would like to add that PTSD is actually pretty difficult to predict / induce.

The numbers vary, but conservatively, 50-60% of people in the US will experience some form of trauma in their lifetime. Only around 7-8% of Americans will develop PTSD from it.

There are a lot of factors that go into whether or not someone develops PTSD. While many deal with the personal characteristics of the victim / survivor, a few can be applied here, or even manipulated by a torturer.

First, interpersonal trauma (war, rape, etc.) is more likely to cause PTSD than impersonal trauma (natural disasters, freak accidents, etc.)
Since torture is an interpersonal trauma, it is already more likely to cause PTSD than many other kinds of trauma
Repeated or chronic exposure to trauma
e.g. repeated sexual assaults
Polyvictimization (where someone experiences many different kinds of trauma)
e.g. physical torture, sexual assault, being forced to watch friends being tortured / killed
Lack of support system
e.g. keep the victim isolated

Even in the absolute worst of all circumstances, however, the chance of developing PTSD will never be 100%. However, that doesn’t mean that the person would show no symptoms at all - it just means that they don’t meet the threshold for the clinical diagnosis. For example, I know someone who was in an extremely serious car accident who occasionally has intrusive, uncontrolled memories of it. They don’t have any other symptoms, but the experience didn’t leave them completely untouched.

Hope that helps!

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Potential Characterizations of Personality Disorders

This list is a general guide as to what kinds of things could potentially separate having traits of a personality disorder from having a full, diagnosable personality disorder.

Not every person with a personality disorder fulfill these criteria.

For instance, Comorbid conditions occur in roughly 66% of people with personality disorders. That’s nowhere near all, but it’s common enough that it could potentially support diagnosing a full personality disorder rather than just traits.

If your character does not come close to meeting a single one of these things listed, you should reconsider diagnosing them with a personality disorder.

Early onset - the character’s PD shows up in early childhood, especially in the first decade.
Egosyntonic - the character has always been this way; it’s just how they are.
Doesn’t seek treatment - they don’t have a problem with how they are, why should they change?
Consistent - what they do is predictable because of how rigid their pattern of behavior is
Brittle adjustment - the character doesn’t cope well with stressors. They aren’t flexible, and tend to blame the world around them for their problems rather than take responsibility themselves.
Distressing to others - the character’s behaviors cause others around them to react negatively. The character gets under their skin.
Participates in the disorder - the character’s behavior perpetuates their disordered behaviors.
Don’t feel the typical range of emotions - tend to experience more negative emotions than most people. May have limited satisfaction with life.
At the extreme on a diagnostic continuum - when looking at the full range of human behavior, the character’s behavior is at the extremes. (See here for what I mean by this). Their behavior interferes with their lives or causes them significant stress.
Non-optimal performance - the character doesn’t reach their full potential due to their personality disorder’s interference with the rest of their life.
Comorbid conditions - the character has more than one personality disorder or another mental illness
No or poor insight into condition - the character doesn’t understand why what they’re doing is problematic.
Potentially dangerous to self or others - the character is at increased risk of self harm, suicide attempts, assault, and/or homicide.

Again, this is not saying that all people with personality disorders have these traits. These are just some things to consider when writing a character with a personality disorder.

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This is a great example of what I mean when I talk about the symptoms of personality disorders. Lots of people have the traits described in personality disorders. Most people have them at the “adaptive” or “subclinical” levels. Not many people experience these things to the “disordered” or “severely disordered” level described above.

Note - these specific examples are not enough in and of themselves to diagnose a personality disorder; a personality disorder is a collection of many different traits that all must be experienced at the disordered or severely disordered levels.

Theodore Millon, Personality Disorders in Modern Life (second edition), 2004.

Image transliteration after the jump.

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scriptshrink

Avoidant Personality Disorder - Demystifying the DSM-V

See the general personality disorder requirements here.

The character needs to be extremely inhibited socially. They feel inadequate constantly, and are super-sensitive to any criticism or judgement.

The character needs to have four or more of the following:

They avoid jobs or activities that require interacting with people because they are afraid of criticism and rejection.
The character doesn’t want to get to know people unless they’re certain they’ll be liked by them.
They hold things back in close relationships because they’re afraid of embarrassment or ridicule.
They’re constantly worried about criticism / rejection socially
They’re self-conscious and reserved in unfamiliar social settings because they feel inadequate.
They see themselves as socially inept and inferior to others
They are unwilling to take risks or do new things because they could get embarrassed

I… doesn’t everybody kinda do this? I know personality disorders are really kind of complicated but that all sounds remarkably normal to me. Is that just being depressed and being on Tumblr talking?

scriptshrink

Hi, @ispeakinsilence! This is part of why I made this post:

http://scriptshrink.tumblr.com/post/155267016499/clinical-judgement-diagnosis-and-announcement

You see, a lot of personality disorders have symptoms that a lot of people do have. The difference between a relatively common behavior / feeling and a personality disorder is that in a personality disorder:

Reaches an extreme level of the symptom in question
The symptom is enduring - it doesn’t come and go, but is a constant feature of the person’s life experience
The symptom is inflexible, stable, and unchanging
The symptom affects every part of their life, not just at work, school, or with a potential romantic partner.
The symptom has been seen AT LEAST since adolescence / young adulthood. Typically, it starts showing up in childhood.

Avoidant personality disorder in particular is one of those ones that’s hard to tell. I’ve modified the chart in my previous post so that it applies to this case:

Let’s say this graph is how nervous someone feels in social interactions. Introverts have some level of discomfort; people with social anxiety have significantly more discomfort; and people with avoidant personality disorder are at the very extreme of feeling uncomfortable.

Again, this is a massive oversimplification, but I’m just trying to get this point across.

I’d like to take a moment and say that I personally don’t really agree with how the DSM-5 is handling personality disorders currently. There was GOING to be a complete overhaul of personality disorders that made a hell of a lot more sense, but unfortunately, this was not adopted (but it’s in the DSM’s appendix).

Here’s hoping the DSM-6 comes to its senses.

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