This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.
Issue #79, 1/31/2007
Folie à Deux: The Exquisite Madness of the
Family
By Glenn Campbell
Family Court Philosopher
In clinical psychology, folie à deux ("madness
of two") refers to a mental illness shared by two or more
people with close emotional ties to each other. An example
would be a cult leader who believes the world is coming to
an end and who convinces his followers to commit mass
suicide together before it happens. The primary illness is
in the leader; in the others, the delusional system is
"induced" and would not have happened without the leader's
influence. The phenomenon is also known as Induced
Delusional Disorder, and in the psychological community the
diagnosis is regarded as "uncommon."
Uncommon, my ass! This has to be the most prevalent mental
disorder out there—given that every other mental
illness has profound and debilitating effects on the family
members of the person afflicted. I contend, in fact, that folie
à deux is what creates most mental illness to begin
with: a wacko parent inducing life-long dysfunction in their
son or daughter. Apart from genes, folie à deux is
the main "vector" or "carrier" of mental illness from one
generation to the next. It can also transfer delusions and
mental illness laterally between romantic partners, which I
would call folie à marriage.
In the idealized Norman Rockwell view of family life, a man
and a woman of good moral character work together to teach
their offspring the fine points of responsibility and good
behavior, using both their words and their example. In
reality, parenting is more often a breeding program for
psychopaths and neurotics. People who have no business
having children nonetheless produce them and then proceed to
turn them, through their unenlightened words and actions,
into messed up copies of themselves.
The kid is powerless to resist. For the first few years of
life, the power relationship between parent and child is
huge. Whatever the child experiences at the hands of the
parent he is going to accept as the natural state of
the universe. You can go through decades of therapy in
adulthood, but you can never really erase those early years.
Folie à deux is the essence of the family, for better
or worse. Once people become bonded to each other, they
begin to share each other's values and delusions. This is
part of the socialization process by which infants with
unlimited potential are turned into relatively restricted
adults performing limited roles in society.
Folie à deux is also an inevitable effect of any
romantic relationship. Any two people who are closely tied
to each other are going to start cross-pollinating their
ideas and perceptions, not always to good effect. Any
mental illness or delusional system in one is going to
transfer in some way to the other. If a husband has some
kooky ideas, his wife is going to try her best to believe
them. So much of her own ego is tied up in her spouse that
she may be able to overlook or gloss over some glaring
insanities.
Love is usually thought of a uniting the strengths of two
people, but often it does the opposite: reinforcing their
weaknesses. Delusional ideas expressed by one are absorbed
and repeated back by the other, who desperately wants to
believe in the person who they have invested in or depend
upon. "Of course, you are right dear," says the supportive
spouse. The other then takes this as confirmation of his
delusional beliefs, and he is now even stronger in holding
them.
That is the dark side of attachment: Not only good qualities
are transferred from one to the other, but also distorted
worldviews and dysfunctional modes of behavior. Violence
breeds violence; sex offenders breed sex offenders, and drug
addicts breed new drug addicts. If you marry a drug addict,
you might not become one yourself, but it is easy to become
sucked into enabling the addiction and inadvertently
reinforcing it. Deeply entangled relationships often bring
loss of control over the other, so that even if one partner
can see what is happening they are often unable to do
anything about it.
Folie à deux does not necessarily mean that the same
mental illness is shared by the two parties. Sometimes the
diseases are complimentary, like masochists and sadists
reinforcing each other. Even a healthy, mentally sound
family member is going to suffer from the stress and lost
resources of dealing with a mentally ill member. If one
partner is a diagnosed schizophrenic, other family members
may know that they are not to blame, but they still face the
trauma and depression of dealing with the disease. An
otherwise sane adult may also experience the
yet-unclassified illness of not being able to do their best
at parenting or exercise their normal moral judgment in
public because the dysfunctional family member is holding
them down or contradicting them.
By definition, folie à deux is reversible. If you
remove a young child from a dysfunctional family and place them
with a more stable one, they are likely to thrive (until
they are returned to the original family again). The same
recovery is often possible after divorce or escape from a
cult. At a certain point, however, the "induced" mental
illness becomes a "native" one and it continues to persist
even after the inducer is long gone. After someone has
spent his whole childhood in a dysfunctional family, then
the illnesses that they donated to him become his own. It
is not a "madness of two" anymore but a "madness of one."
Then these people get married and have children, and the
cycle starts over again.
“it answerded my questions.”
—sharon 2/7/07 (rating=3)
“You hit the nail on the head.”
— 3/2/07 (rating=4)
“all lives give part of their own journey and learning of life as they see it. Mistakes happen.”
—High school diploma person, and years of mistakes and learning to respect everyone on their own journey in life. mental health in soc service is another cult now alientating parents from children. 12/4/07 (rating=1)
“It totally answered my questions about two family members”
—concerned parent 1/11/08 (rating=5)
“Really interesting, but you miss a few things. The real root of these kinds of illness are frequently spiritual. I have seen many people who have been completely cured and liberated from these situations with spiritual counseling, sacramental confession and prayer therapies.”
—AnneG 7/23/08 (rating=3)
“i just happened to be trying to remember the name for the madness of two, but this is so the story of my life”
—pumpmar 8/12/08 (rating=5)
“Thank you”
— 9/24/10 (rating=5)
“Rings true to my own experiences with a schizophrenic ex boyfriend, It makes things that occured alot easier to understand. Thanks”
— 12/6/10 (rating=5)
“I thought it was very good, but a bit negative in that it didn't discuss treatment options. reatment options”
—Retired Mental Health Social Worker 12/29/10 (rating=3)
“it is absolutely splendid...I'm stunned by it's "right on" precision!”
—Gail from Brooklyn 2/24/11 (rating=5)