Contagious psychology: some notes in lieu of an actual article
In the last few days, two news stories have cropped up that ring a particular bell in the belfry of things-I-am-trying-to-write-about-but-don’t-have-time.
First, the CDC has finally been goaded into doing a study of people suffering from Morgellon’s disease, most of whom live in California (and indeed, most of whom live in the Bay Area.) Predictably, the CDC has determined that Morgellon’s is a mental disorder with no identifiable organic cause—not at all the result folks were looking for.
Second, there is a case in Le Roy, NY, where a number of young adults, all from the same high school, have been diagnosed with “conversion disorder” (formerly known as hysteria, and one of the most general catch-all diagnoses in psychology. This has attracted the attention of celebrity/activist Erin Brockovich, who wants to link the outbreak to a toxic spill some three miles away and forty years back.
Both these stories are spun in the news as focusing on whether or not a given disease is “real”, which is nonsense. But neither set of stories asks the more interesting question, which I think would is the starting point for a whole new psychic nosology: can psychological disorders be “contagious”?
