I am not sorry if this is helpful..  Sometimes psychotic-like conditions (e.g., hearing voices) and Schneider's first rank symptoms could be the presenting symptoms of trauma disorders.

Btw, maybe you can search dissociative psychosis as well

I was just saying that 'magical thinking' was (in the DSM-IV at least) considered to be a delusional state rather than possibly existent, I did not state that it was the sole criterion anywhere.

Being told repeatedly that someone was seeing visions of destruction in the not too distant future wouldn't be threatening to anyone? I mean, you wouldn't find this threatening or scary that someone kept telling you the world was going to end and everyone was going to die?

Can we keep this focused on finding research regarding 'magical thinking'?

Yes, I have seen a connection between psychotic-like symptoms and trauma disorders in the evidence and as well as a link between trauma and an increased belief in ESP and other paranormal occurrences, although there has been limited research into this second correlation

I feel like I am bringing coals to Newcastle, because the ideas below are based on what I have learned from Turkington and others at Newcastle-on-Tyne:

1-CBT of psychosis works

2-It involves "normalizing the experience" of psychosis, including the hearing of voices. There is a group, including celebrities like Anthony Hopkins, who have been open about hearing voices--they do not see this as ESP, know it is not experienced by most people, but correctly feel it is important to let persons with psychosis and others that hearing voices is not necessarily abnormal

3-Similarly, "magical thinking" is something we all have--confession: I know better, but when in a hurry I press the button for an elevator and/or look down the tracks for a subway as if this will make the elevator and/or subway come sooner.

4-My own experience with group CBT in persons at a large urban state hospital are found in a paper by Shelly et al:

Article Symptom-Specific Group Therapy for Inpatients with Schizophre n i a

I was hoping you would say CBT for psychosis works

I realise not all who have psychosis would have ESP, etc. (and vice versa). I guess it is all down to the 'severity' of the magical thinking whether it is considered 'pathological' or not, as you caught me red handed, I often press the button for the lift once it has arrived, trying to get the doors to open faster. I believe it would be worth looking into who believes what, as I cannot say I have such experiences as those described above, however my uni course has sparked my interest in it and from all the reports from around the world of such experiences, is it such 'magical thinking' (for some at least)

I should give credit where credit is due: my former medical school classmate (we both went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine aka AECOM), Michael Garrett, MD, is vice chair of psychiatry at SUNY-Downstate, and in collaboration with Turkington and others has brought CBT for psychosis to the USA....anything I have contributed is because Mike told me that CBT works for psychosis and that I should try it: so I did.

Another angle on this is the Psychology Today article on the extensiveness of magical thinking: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200803/magical-thinking

Magical Thinking

Even hard-core skeptics can't help but find sympathy in the fabric of the universe—and occasionally try to pull its strings.

By Matthew Hutson, published on March 1, 2008 - last reviewed on November 20, 2015

Hello Tara,

My only investment to this discussion is to congratulate you on this original line of thinking. I imagine it will not be easy to research, but I just wanted to encourage you in your quest which I find quite interesting.

Best of luck !

Holly

PS : the article suggested by Hendrika is surprisingly good !

You might like to contact Renaud Evrard (he's on ResearchGate). He's an expert on the topic and also has clinical experience in dealing with persons grappling with abnormal experiences. -Peter

Roger Griffin at Brookes is a very interesting person to discuss this with. Read the Wallace piece on mazeway-resynthesis that I reference in the work you recently read. I find the process that leads to the transition where previously improbable things become reality quite fascinating. Breivik is not psychotic yet he made his journey to becoming a killer using the vehicle of a cult to self-radicalise. There seems to be similarities regarding believing the previously unbelieveable. 

I really need to check this more often

Antony- often the case is with these extrasensory experiences such as precognitions (seeing events before they occur), if the events foreseen are bad, then people may well feel threatened, as is the same with anything that they do not understand (such as clairempathy, it is probably disconcerting if not threatening to have someone know exactly how one is feeling). Again, with clairempathy, if the individual is unable to understand that the emotions are not theirs then they may act on them and a lot of anomalous experiences can be distressing to that individual (Roxburgh & Roe, 2014), and due to the western culture, where such experiences are viewed negatively (e.g. as psychosis) this would increase the chance of either the individual who experiences the phenomena or those around them being threatened by them. I think it is not a sole criterion of DSM-5 but it certainly does come under delusions (Greyson, 1977) and in some cases it is referred to as ‘fantasy beliefs’ (Lawrence et al, 1995) rather than the possibility of it actually existing. I also suspect that most people do not reveal their experiences if they are parapsychological, for the fear of being thought of as psychotic.

Andy- I agree that trauma appears to have its part in phenomena, however, it appears to be put down to a ‘desire for control’ or a ‘desire for explanations’ (Lawrence et al, 1995), whereas I would argue that the trauma merely causes the individual to become more open to the possibilities. There is also a suggested link between psychosis and trauma, it may be a similar thing in that the trauma causes the individual to be open to anomalous experiences

Lewis- the experience of psychosis, through ‘normalising’ it, would still be viewing it as an illness rather than taking the possibility of it being anything other than an illness? I do not see how this makes any odds on my theory as the individual would be taught that their experiences are down to their illness and the more they argued that it was something more, the less ‘insight’ they would be viewed as having. Furthermore, CBT changes thought processes, right, then it could have the effect of closing the mind to the possibility that these experiences are real (hate having to say this about CBT as I am an advocate of CBT and other psychotherapies over the medical treatments such as drugs). As I said, it is down to the ‘severity’ of the ‘magical thinking’, the lift button thing (probably) wouldn’t be seen as pathological, however feeling someone else’s emotions as strongly as your own probably would be.

Hendrika- the article is very detailed about various ‘culturally accepted’ magical thinking experiences such as Santa and John Lennon’s piano as being sacred and therefore imbibing some of his soul(?), however, beliefs such as telepathy are still viewed as highly ‘pathological’ by society if not by both society and the professionals too.

Holly- thank you:)

Renzo and Ruchira- the ‘delusion’ of ‘magical thinking’ such as the existence of psi phenomena is one such ‘pathological shared delusion’, loads of people have such experiences, even those who do not believe, but it is still viewed as pathological

Ruchira- the healthcare professions are biased towards finding something ‘wrong’ with an individual, therefore I would argue that the majority of medical professionals would still view mystical experiences as pathological, a symptom of illness. That being said though, ‘clinical parapsychology’ is slowly gaining awareness and is the first I think to view these experiences as anything other than pathological. Furthermore, I believe this experience of ‘reality erosion’ is in part down to the (blind(?)) trust demanded by society (and the governing laws of said society) towards the medical professionals such as psychiatrists, what they say goes. So due to the fact that medical professionals such as psychiatrists have (historically at least) viewed parapsychological phenomena as ‘pathological’, that is still the view of the general public (and probably a good proportion of medical professionals too). I saw this in the article and thought it summarised my point: “As Aaron (not his real name) told Aviv: ‘What happens if there’s some truth to your delusion? What if it is tied to reality?… They don’t want you to come up with mythical explanations. So they keep telling you over and over again that it’s just your brain’”- the doctors do not want to hear about the mystical possibilities, they just want to classify it as an illness (this was in 2011, so not that long ago) and due to the power hold by the professionals such as psychiatrists, what patient, or even what individual would be able to stand up to them and say ‘you are wrong’?

Peter- I will do so, is he involved with clinical parapsychology?

Dominic- which work are you referring to? I shall also try to contact Roger

Renzo- so psychosis IS just a form of social control, to quell those with beliefs (such as telepathy or clairempathy) that would be threatening to society and to class them as ‘insane’? Who gets to decide on what is ‘normal’ and what is not with regards to belief and psychology? I personally believe nobody has this right. Nobody can dismiss another individual’s experiences or perceptions as ‘not real’. Of course, things have to be in place to prevent harm but to say that someone is psychotic and therefore their experiences are invalid due to them not being seen as ‘real’ is just wrong

I also have seen evidence to suggest that psychotic beliefs are linked to higher ESP abilities, so the statement that individuals are psychotic because of magical thinking doesn’t, in my opinion, really come into it (Shulman, n.d.) hence why I am arguing that they are not psychotic

Oops a bit longer than I expected… thank you all for your replies so far:)

Tara, Researchgate told me you had read 'The Cultic Dimension Of Terrorist Radicalisation' - just pull the Wallace reference and read about his thoughts on mazeway resynthesis.

Roger Griffin is also on this platform.

I shall try to find out a bit more about where clinical parapsychology originated from and where to get a basic understanding. I shall look her up

Dear Tara, 

People hear voices and it is rather troublesome for non-psychotic persons:

Article Auditory Pseudohallucinations in United Kingdom War Veterans...

Article Experiences of hearing voices: Analysis of a novel phenomeno...

Article The Hearing Voices Movement in the United States: Findings f...

Dominic- alright, will do

Beatrice- Does hearing voices have any relationship to 'magical thinking'/parapsychological phenomena? Regardless of whether it does or not, of course it is viewed as distressing, it's not, in the eyes of the psychiatric experts (and therefore the society), 'normal' and anything that's not 'normal' in the eyes of the medical professionals is not 'normal' at all. I suppose the voices that are being heard could be occurrences of telepathy but I didn't actually mean hallucinations such as hearing voices. In your opinion, are everyone who hears voices psychotic? or are you trying to say hearing voices is not a part of psychosis?

Dear Tara, 

my point was that everyone who hear voices is NOT schizophrenic but people suffer from this phenomenon and there are special associations, e.g., in Finland, to get support from other fellows. Psi spell it out. 

Hearing voices is not necessarily psychotic.

Article Getting heard. The Hearing Voices Movement

Article Emerging Perspectives From the Hearing Voices Movement: Impl...

Chapter The Hearing Voices Movement

Sorry, my misunderstanding

On Hallucinations in clinical and non clinical sample I rembember an interesting lecture by Stanghellini G. You might be able to find some related paper.

Regarding abnormal experiences and how they can be or not "disturbing", you might be inetersted in the FBF (frankfurter beschwerdefragebogen) or at the BSABS (Bonn scale for the assestment of Basic symptoms). 

There are a couple of interesting papers (e.g. Maggini C & Raballo A) that evaluates the relationship between Basic Symptoms and Depersonalisation or self-centrality. I think that some authors used it in healthy subjects as well.  

Moreover, I found helpful, to better understand the evolution of these perceptuial abnormalities, the Klosterkotter's transition sequences. I think they are quite a fascinating explaination. 

best, 

P.