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Absol197
2016-07-26, 04:29 PM
Hey there, Playground! In a game I’m hopefully going to be playing in, I have a character that has some repressed but deep-seated emotional problems. Because I’m obsessively thorough, I wanted to have the most official terms possible for those problems, in case she’s ever captured and analyzed (yes, yes, I’m weird; what else is new?)

The two big ones are a form of either PTSD or EED, but the other I want a new name for, because she’s of a non-human species.

The gist is this: she belongs to a species that, comparative to humans, is hyper-social. Basically pack hunters with an incredibly complex social structure. However, due to a quirk of her advanced supernatural abilities, her mind/brain’s idea of social interaction isn’t physical and verbal socialization, but pure telempathic connection. But because she’s the only one she’s ever known with these abilities, everyone else is uncomfortable (and often actually harmed) by such interaction, forcing her to forego what, to her, is natural socialization with other members of her species.

So, it wasn’t a hard leap to determine that she’s likely suffering from a mental disorder caused by a highly social species being unable to connect in a meaningful way to her pack, basically outcast without anyone else realizing it. What would be a good name for this sort of disorder? I’d like both a “common” name and a “clinical designation,” if possible, sort of how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is the clinical term but was often called “shell shock” colloquially before the clinical term really caught on in recent years.

The setting is futuristic (“Star Wars-ish,” to be precise), in case you’re wanting to have that as a reference frame.

Additionally, as a secondary concern, I was wondering what actual psychological disorder would be the most likely to arise from the following event. What constructive research I’ve been able to do has me torn between Post-Traumatic Stress and Extreme Emotional Disturbance, but a more education opinion would be appreciated:
Once again related to her unique supernatural abilities, her older brother, perhaps the one person whom she actually felt close to, was violently murdered when she was 14. Because of her extreme empathic abilities, she essentially experienced the attack as it was happening, and then experienced all of his last emotions (anger, grief, sorrow, fear, and loneliness) for close to an entire hour as he died, all as if they were actually happening to her.

It’s been established that she still, when thinking too much about that day, feels the pain of the shot that killed him as if it is happening again. This is probably mostly psychosomatic, but likely has an element of actual supernatural psychometric echoes.

Yes, I’m very mean to my characters :smalltongue: ! Anyone who wants to help out, I welcome your input!

SethoMarkus
2016-07-26, 06:26 PM
Not a psychologist but it was my major before switching. Though I'm not qualified to comment on some of your questions, as far as the impact of such circumstances on the character, it can be anything you want it to be. What I mean is, toy created the species/race and the chatacter, so only you know how their psychology works.

In humans, prolonged separation from social contact can be detrimental for sure. Just look into studies on prisoners in solitary confinement. I don't believe PTSD is the general diagnosis for such cases, probably more along the lines of a stunted social/interpersonal ability. Maybe look at Autism and Asperger Syndrome for cues on how to portray a stunted ability to communicate and connect; in those cases it isn't usually due to a lack of intelligence or understanding, but ability to connect and express.

Other than that, PTSD seems the most appropriate for their history. Maybe an extreme form of sympathetic disorder?

Absol197
2016-07-26, 06:37 PM
How it affects her is something I have well thought-out and isn't really an issue; I'm more just looking for something to call these disorders in case a clinical designation is called for (more likely than you might think: the GM runs a series of interconnected games, and although this character's adventure is mostly a solo game, another PC I have a high chance of running into at some point is a psychology expert running propaganda for the Alliance analogue).

One thought for a "common name" that might exist in-universe for this disorder for highly social sentients that I thought of was "Isolation Disorder," but I still don't have a clinical name I'm fond of, not an idea of there's some other name that might work better...

Might i ask what sympathetic disorder is? From the sound of it I can guess, and if I'm right you're spot on, but I'm not positive it means what I think it means.

SethoMarkus
2016-07-26, 07:49 PM
Sympathetic disorder isn't really a category itself, just something I used for convenience. There are cases of individuals suffering sympathetic symptoms of a disease they don't have themselves but someone they are close do does have. An example would be a husband (or wife) of a pregnant woman suffering morning sickness despite not being pregnant themself. Another example would be someone feeling a physical sensation of pain when working with/on an individual with a sever injury. It's usually an empathic response (like yawning being contagious). I was just spitballing the idea of a chronic version of this for someone who is telepathically empathetic. She would probably take on the mental state of others she was close to.

As for a name, how about Maladaptive Hyper-Empathy Disorder?

KillingAScarab
2016-07-26, 09:04 PM
One thought for a "common name" that might exist in-universe for this disorder for highly social sentients that I thought of was "Isolation Disorder," but I still don't have a clinical name I'm fond of, not an idea of there's some other name that might work better...Since you're looking for "Star Wars-ish" might I suggest X-ian Isolation Disorder for the format, where X is the species name? Also, something far more colorful for the colloquialism. After all, the Dark Forces series gave us "Aw, Sith spit!" and there are plenty of technical nicknames. While the setting isn't really used to explore mental health, there are still things like space madness (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Space_madness)/deepsick (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Deepsick), bitter winter (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bitter_Winter) and hyper-rapture (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyper-rapture).


Might i ask what sympathetic disorder is? From the sound of it I can guess, and if I'm right you're spot on, but I'm not positive it means what I think it means.Inigo Montoya would be proud (unless you had six fingers and had killed his father).


Sympathetic disorder isn't really a category itself, just something I used for convenience. There are cases of individuals suffering sympathetic symptoms of a disease they don't have themselves but someone they are close do does have. An example would be a husband (or wife) of a pregnant woman suffering morning sickness despite not being pregnant themself. Another example would be someone feeling a physical sensation of pain when working with/on an individual with a sever injury. It's usually an empathic response (like yawning being contagious). I was just spitballing the idea of a chronic version of this for someone who is telepathically empathetic. She would probably take on the mental state of others she was close to.

As for a name, how about Maladaptive Hyper-Empathy Disorder?I was tripped up by this, as I couldn't find exactly what you were describing. It seems to me the fictional condition Absol197 is interested in would result from the opposite; being unable to be in contact with others and experience their emotions. I think that this might actually be a bit closer to the sort of lack of response from a body that William James hypothesized about (James-Lange theory of emotion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%E2%80%93Lange_theory)). This reminded me of an old Radiolab episode, "Where Am I? (http://www.radiolab.org/story/91524-where-am-i/)" which dealt with things like phantom limbs and out-of-body experiences. Except, the physiology which is "missing" belongs to another sentient being. Perhaps one of the symptoms would be phantom emotions? Say, the sudden loss of connection to the character's brother might mean those feelings come back though there isn't an actual source... but also having smaller emotional responses to present stimuli because you don't feel others' reactions?

TheYell
2016-07-26, 11:08 PM
common name: psisolation

Absol197
2016-07-26, 11:08 PM
Oof, sorry, I wasn't quite specific enough I guess. I just didn't want to barrage you with details. Let me clarify:

As a hyper-sensitive, she is literally incapable of not feeling the thoughts and emotions of people around her. The problem arises that her mind expects that people will connect to her that way. But she's the only one who's telepathic so other people don't reach out telepathically, and aren't used to being contacted that way, and so freak out.

The best real-world analogy I can come up with would be a person who's perfectly capable of speech, but no one ever talks to them. The people around that person talk to each other and engage in normal conversation, and will talk about that person, even right in front of them as if they weren't there, but will never address them directly, and react with shock and confusion if they talk to someone, and chastise them for doing so.

And the intent was for this disorder not to be unique to telepathic people, but that it has arisen in an atypical situation because of her enhanced perceptions and sensitivities altering her normal social growth. For instance, other members of her species, cut off from members of the pack (for whatever reason), would develop the same disorder due to loneliness and isolation; she developed it even though she hasn't been "cut off," in the normal fashion, but because what her mind considers "normal socialization" is something no one else around her is willing or even capable of participating in.

I was also thinking of it not being unique to her species specifically, but being a general condition that affects multiple species that are classified as "highly social." Different species display different symptoms, but the cause is the same and the symptoms are similar enough that in medical parlance it's considered the same disorder regardless of species. Humans would be just under the threshold for being sociable enough to have it, her species (togruta) are just over the threshold, and certain species (like the gran) are so vulnerable to it they can literally die of isolation if they're alone long enough. Bonus thread points! Name this scale :smallbiggrin: !

The "Star Wars-ish" is because the GM has completely re-worked a lot of the history of the galaxy and "grown up" a lot of the themes. And this character's arc specifically has a bunch of different themes, including exploring spirituality and the burdens of power (and knowledge). A lot is the same, but the feel and organizations that one might encounter, while many have similar names, are very different. Basically, we want to play using Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars system, but we want to explore different themes, so everything was redone from the ground up, more or less.

SethoMarkus
2016-07-27, 01:28 AM
I was also thinking of it not being unique to her species specifically, but being a general condition that affects multiple species that are classified as "highly social." Different species display different symptoms, but the cause is the same and the symptoms are similar enough that in medical parlance it's considered the same disorder regardless of species.

That may be more difficult, then, since current psycological terms tend to be species/race specific; that is, they only extend to Humans. Often times an apparent disorder in an animal is described as disorder-like. Each species/race in tour setting will have their own psychology and need their own terms to describe their own unique symptoms and reactions. I suppose it is possible for species similar enough in psychology and physiology to have similar enough symptoms to use the same term for them, but otherwise it would need to be a fairly specific ailment, probably more physical than mental. Such as mercury poisoning. I only bring this up because even with Humans psychological disorders tend to present differently based on culture and time period. Depression in one country can look very different from depression in another country, and that's with organisms with the same physiology and genetic makeup.

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-27, 02:11 AM
Well, after doing a few minutes' worth of digging around online...

Social isolation in the way you describe can give rise to different psychological disorders, but is not itself a psychological disorder. A fitting analogy might be that there is no disease-name for eating spoiled food, but you can get norovirus as a consequence of doing it.

So if you were looking to map this onto an established psychological disorder, how exactly does the constant inability for telepathic communication actually affect the character in question?

If you wanted to make an alien-sounding disorder, then I would just throw some sciency words together, but I'd base it on the symptoms that manifest.

Joe the Rat
2016-07-27, 08:21 AM
As a point, if hers is a unique case (telepathic isolationism within socio-physical community), then there isn't a name for it. The best you have is something like "tel-emp isolation neurosis, aka brain quiet sadness, only that in this case it does not include the normal physical isolation precursor"

Projecting or connecting with someone as they suffer and die should be common enough for a label. Something like Shared Death Experience Disorder or Empathic Thanatosis Event Disorder. or "Seen the Reaper".

prufock
2016-07-27, 12:25 PM
For the fictional disorder: Meta-awareness Isolation Syndrome (MIS). Mis- as a prefix literally means "ill." Pronounce it "miz" as in miserable.

For the real event: She has basically had a near death experience by proxy. After a NDE, depression, substance abuse, dissociation, PTSD, and so on are common negative effects. See here (http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0101-60832007000700015&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en).

goto124
2016-07-28, 02:33 AM
For instance, other members of her species, cut off from members of the pack (for whatever reason), would develop the same disorder due to loneliness and isolation; she developed it even though she hasn't been "cut off," in the normal fashion, but because what her mind considers "normal socialization" is something no one else around her is willing or even capable of participating in.

For an analogy, imagine someone who spent all her time in her bedroom using only the internet to talk to people... but then she's forced to go outside for the first time in her life.

She'll have to adjust to a whole new set of social mores. She can't pick her nose without putting people off, she can't pretend to be older or younger than she is, etc.

She'll be socially awkward.