Meaning of Paranoia | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The obsolete name for a psychotic disorder, now called delusional disorder, often (in one of six subtypes) characterized by delusions of persecution and a perceived threat against the individual affected with the disorder, and often associated with false accusations and a general mistrust of others.
   countable, uncountable
2. Rare form of paranoia.
   form-of, rare, uncountable
3. Extreme, irrational distrust of others.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“The acute mental confusion , the paranoïa may be developed secondarily among hystericals; they require a new psychological study, and claim no further attention in the description of the mental state of hystericals.”

“The second set of authors,—those who draw a distinct line of demarkation between the acute psychoses in question and chronic paranoïa are headed by Herz (15); Fritsch (16) and Meynert pointed out especially the fact that in all these acute psychoses the characteristic traits were a condition of confused consciousness and a difficulty in orientation; these traits seemed to them so characteristic that they applied the term confusion (verwirrheit) to the whole group of these acute diseases; they did not include in this group chronic paranoïa; no distinction was made, however, between acute mental confusion and acute paranoïa.”

“They drum through the garden with insulting accusation of theft! Is a Guggenheim worth stealing?—or this, paranoïa of chronic mistrust?[…]From the train’s arrival in Venezia, before one steps aboard the vaporetti, they know: any nobody is grist for a mill. The common ingredient is paranoïa.”

“After the challenge that the Devès marshaled in the Jeandet Affair, the hostility of the administration bordered on paranoïa.”

“a. the furniture becomes an enemy: (a sort of) paranoïa.”

“Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory attributes an essential role to paranoïa as regards the constitution of subjectivity: «Sans cette dimension paranoiac, il n’y a pas de sujet. Il n’y a pas non plus d’ecriture» («Without this paranoid dimension, there can be no subject. Without it, writing is also impossible»).[…]We watch this writing subject whose writing, perhaps, is as much a function of his doubts, his paranoïa, and marginality. But the doubts, the paranoïa, and the contradictions are not a sign of failure.[…]Above all, TPA is a lesson and a reminder that paranoïa is both the permanent condition of the writing subject and what creates the permanent possibility of resignifying processes.”

CEFR level