You Can Catch Madness

Two ordinary people suddenly go insane together. It’s a premise we enjoy from a safe distance—because surely it could never be us. I’m not so sure. Shared madness isn’t rare, it isn’t aberrant, and it sits a lot closer to ordinary love than we’d like to think. Strip away the spectacle and what’s left is the most common thing in the world: two lonely people who found a home in each other. Show notes Further reading • Folie à deux: the madness of two (https://btr.mt/analects/folie-a-deux) — the article that inspired this lecture. • Four models of psychopathology (https://btr.mt/analects/models-of-psy...) — how we decide what counts as “abnormal”, and why a benign shared delusion slips past all of it. • The loneliness epidemic (https://btr.mt/analects/loneliness-ep...) and Explaining group dynamics (https://btr.mt/analects/relationship-...) — why social isolation is so dangerous for us. • It’s Not Social Media, Life Is Just Worse (https://btr.mt/analects/life-is-worse...) — a companion lecture on modern isolation. • Successful Prophets (https://btr.mt/analects/successful-pr...) — the same connection mechanism scaled from the pair to the group. References • Ursula and Sabina Eriksson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_...) (the Swedish sisters). • Folie à deux (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%...) ; Jules Baillarger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_B...) , Charles Lasègue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...) and Jean-Pierre Falret (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pi...) . • Shared psychotic disorder (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NB...) (the undiagnosis quote), and the intimacy-in-isolation qualification (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-007-00...) . • The Japanese family case (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...) (shared delusional hallucination); delusional parasitosis (https://journals.lww.com/inpj/fulltex...) ; shared pseudocyesis (https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0041-1726615) . • The Tromp family (BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-aust...) , Mamamia (https://www.mamamia.com.au/tromp-family/) ). • Theranos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos) : Elizabeth Holmes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabe...) , Sunny Balwani (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesh_...) , and Bad Blood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Blo...) . • Group polarisation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_p...) and risky shift (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupshift) . • Gang-stalking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_st...) , Morgellons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons) , and mass psychogenic illness (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_ps...) .