Shared Psychosis- The Folly of Two

Strange Matters Podcast

Campfire Audio Productions

Science, History, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences

4.4 • 987 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2016

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shared psychosis: an extremely rare condition found in the DSM IV that describes psychotic behavior exhibited by a healthy individual who is under the influence of a close friend or family member with schizophrenia. There is a lot we don’t know about the mind; however we do know that people can act in irrational ways when the neurotransmitters in their brain are not functioning properly.

Could this explain the case of the Eriksson twins? These sister were behaving strangely before darting across one of the busiest highways in the United Kingdom, known as M6. Not only did they display super human resilience when hit by vehicles traveling at very high speeds, but they continued to be defiant to the police officers and paramedics that were trying to assist them. Are their behaviors simply a product of delusion? Or could there have been something more… drugs, conspiracy or even a suicide pact?

The story of the Gibson sisters is similar however significantly less violent and more strange. These sisters grew up in social isolation due to being victimized as the only black girls in their area in Wales, England. They quickly turned toward each other and inward for comfort. They developed an unhealthy dependence upon each other and began acting in bizarre ways. Sometimes they would move in-sync almost as if they were both puppets controlled by an invisible puppeteer. They spoke to each other in their own made-up language. This strange behavior progressed into violence and crime and eventually led to the demise of one of the sisters. But what really caused her death? Listen to this episode and find out for yourself!
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Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Oh, Welcome to the Strange Matters Podcast. Here are Strange Matters we discuss
0:29.6	anything just outside the norm ranging from the bizarre and unexplained to the
0:33.9	supernatural and paranormal and everything in between. I'm your host today Eric
0:38.4	joined by my fellow co-host Sean. Today we're going to be discussing a strange psychiatric phenomenon known as shared psychotic disorder and a couple
0:49.9	of very bizarre and disturbing cases that demonstrate this occurrence all too well.
0:54.6	Now shared psychosis also known as the folly of two is an exceptionally uncommon condition
1:00.1	where the secondary case, a normal individual, starts to share the delusions of the primary case,
1:06.0	or the individual who is psychotic or a schizophrenic in the first place.
1:09.0	So the delusions are induced in the second case and usually disappear if the individuals are
1:13.7	separated. Just to give an example if I find the primary case a schizophrenic for
1:18.7	example and I start to believe that the government is talking to me through my
1:21.9	TV in an effort to control my
1:23.4	behaviors and then my co-host Eric who would be the secondary case who was near me at the time all
1:28.8	the sudden started to believe the exact same thing.
1:30.8	Yeah that's exactly right.
1:33.2	This is a very rare condition indeed.
1:35.6	However, it is actually recognized by the DSM as an actual condition.
1:41.6	And the DSM is basically the diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders.
1:48.8	That being said, it's nothing that I have ever come across in my experience with psychiatric pharmacy.
1:55.0	All right, so I just gave a kind of brief overview example before with me and my co-host Eric.
2:02.0	But the cases that we're going to be talking about
2:03.3	with this episode are Farmer Severe.
	...

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