Paranoid Thinking and Wellbeing. The Role of Doubt in Pharmacological and Metacognitive Therapies
Frontiers in Psychology September 12, 2019 Leonor Asensio-Aguerri, Luis Beato‐Fernández, María Stavraki et al. 2 citations
Paranoid thinking and positive mental health are two separate dimensions, not opposite ends of a single scale. In 60 patients with DSM-5 diagnoses linked to paranoid thinking, treatments that reduce pathological confidence—such as metacognitive therapy and antipsychotics—can inadvertently induce doubt in all thoughts, not just delusional ones. This generalized doubt partially mediates the relationship between paranoid thinking and well-being, meaning that while these treatments reduce paranoid thoughts, they also lower patients' well-being and quality of life by casting doubt on non-delusional thoughts as well.