In a captive environment, paranoia is unavoidable. Only the prison aut — Paranoia

"Paranoia is infectious. It’s also an incredibly useful tool. If you can make people afraid enough, uncertain enough, they will simply stop moving."

"In a world full of threat, it may be kind of beneficial for people to be on guard. Its good to be looking around and see whos following you and whats happening. Not everybody is trying to get you, but some people may be."

"This is another main reason why I believe paranoia is on the increase. Because we are constantly reminded, in the press, of threats from other people, we overestimate the chances of these events happening to us. There is a lot of research on this. It is what is known as the availability heuristic. We make an estimate of the likelihood of a particular event simply by how easily we bring it to mind. Our children are getting fat because we arent letting them out to play enough. Were scared they will be run over or abducted by strangers. In fact, the risks to the health from obesity are much higher than the risks of either of those events."

"There is no sort of them and us, it is not that most people dont have paranoid thoughts and a few people have many, it seems that they are evenly distributed across the population, or many of us have them, much more than was previously thought. And actually there is also evidence that societies that are perhaps more unequal, have less social cohesion, are all societies where there is a bit more suspicion in the general population. So paranoia certainly can be a problem for the individual, and I work in hospitals and see people who have severe experiences, but also its perhaps the mark of the health of a society, the levels of mistrust within it."

"Only the severe end was even considered. There was no sense of spectrum. Paranoia was very much seen as inexplicable, un-understandable, if anything some kind of biological system that had gone wrong. I remember thinking that seemed very reductionalist, that there must be some kind of psychology to it. Once I started looking at it as a spectrum, once you make the connection to things such as depression and anxiety, it really opens it up. People with depression have higher levels of paranoia because of a sense of vulnerability and low self-esteem. Anxiety is linked too. But whereas anxiety may lead to fearing harm from a spider, or of being humiliated in a social situation, it doesnt lead to a belief that the spider or others intend to humiliate or hurt us. Its the attribution of intent that distinguishes paranoia."

"Paranoia all too often leads to isolation, unhappiness, and profound distress. But the exceptionally positive immediate results for the patients in this study show a new route forward in treatment. In just a thirty minute session, those who used the right psychological techniques showed major reductions in paranoia."