Paranoia is not one thing but many. Armand DiMele and Linda Vanella, LCSW-R, walk through its distinct forms, from paranoid schizophrenia and delusional disorder to paranoid personality disorder and the quieter, corrosive suspicion that poisons everyday relationships and careers. Fear, memory, and how to face both close the hour.
Randy Kay, author of “Ben Behind His Voices,” joins Armand to trace her five-year journey recognizing her son’s gradual-onset schizophrenia. They examine how parents normalize early warning signs, why diagnosis so often comes only at crisis, and how education, NAMI, and redefining hope made recovery possible.
Children raised by mentally ill or incapacitated parents face invisible burdens that quietly shape their adult choices. Armand DiMele draws on the double bind theory, a case of psychosomatic snow blindness, and research on children of psychotic parents to show how early caretaking roles become lifelong patterns.
What separates a fixed false belief from reality, and when should it be challenged? Armand DiMele and Dr. Sherry Siegel, M.D. walk through the psychiatric anatomy of delusions and hallucinations, from delusional jealousy to Lilliputian visions in Parkinson’s patients, using vivid case stories to show how the brain constructs and distorts the real.
