What are your thoughts on people who believe to have psychic or medium abilities?
Illness or psychic gift?
While it may be easy to lump all psychics into a group and label them as frauds, sometimes this isn't always true. Some people truly believe that they are psychic, even when confronted about obvious "misses" in readings. They may blame negative energy, or a disruption of their psychic vibrations. (Whatever that means.) Some of these indefatigable people may have deluded themselves. It should be noted here that no psychic has ever predicted a future event. The ones who aren't just trying to be special or helpful or different, the ones who aren't scamming for money, the ones who clearly think they are predicting the future may actually be mentally ill.
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that affects about 1% of the population of the United States. The symptoms are divided into both "positive" and "negative" categories, though this doesn't mean you'd be pleased to have either. The "negative" symptoms bear striking resemblance to the symptoms of depression, and may include an inability to enjoy everyday life. The "positive" symptoms, however, are much like the powers claimed by psychics.
The positive symptoms include: hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders, and movement disorders. Hallucinations may involve seeing something that is not, in fact, there. These are visual hallucinations. There are also auditory hallucinations, like hearing voices. Delusions are beliefs that remain in spite of indisputable proof that the claim is false. For example, if I believe that I can predict the future and write down ten predictions that will occur within the next year, and they are all proven false yet I still believe I can predict the future, I may be schizophrenic. This is very interesting in that many self-proclaimed psychics have been faced with evidence that their predictions were false, and yet still sell themselves as bona fide psychics.
The PRIME Early Screening Test for Schizphrenia which is online as a research tool for Yale Medical School, has many questions about psychic beliefs.
You can take the test here: http://www.schizophrenia.com/sztest/
Five questions on the test (Numbers 2, 5, 6, 8, and 10) can be directly linked to supposed psychic abilities (there are others that fit into what psychics claim to be able to do, but these five questions are directly connected to psychic ability), and if, on the test, you answer those five questions with "strongly agree" and every single other one with "strongly disagree", the test yields a positive result and suggests seeking medical help.
Again, while it may be easy to say that psychics are misdiagnosed as schizophrenics, no psychic on the planet has ever correctly predicted the future. If they were being misdiagnosed, then the visions wouldn't constitute hallucinations or delusions. They would be fact. And they are not.
Another possibility is Schizotypal Personality Disorder. This is very much like Schizophrenia, but has more emphasis on "magical thinking".
yes, i think that they are misdiagnosed.....the field of psych should have a category for them :-)
“Some people truly believe that they are psychic, even when confronted about obvious 'misses' in readings.”
In determining whether or not such an ability exists, we would first predict – all else being equal – a number of 'hits' and 'misses' proportionate to the odds of someone guessing whatever it is under consideration at random. In a lab or equivalent setting this is particularly easy to do, especially with standardized cards, numbers, objects, etc., as in experiments that test for ESP. Next, we would perform the experiment and record the total number of 'hits' and 'misses', and compare them to the number we've already determined would represent pure randomness. The greater the number of 'tries' the more accurate would be the sampling, naturally, but we would expect, given a sufficient sampling, a percentage approaching the prediction of randomness if no psychic ability is present.
If the percentage of 'hits', however, is even modestly above that which would represent randomness (say, even 51%, or 53% or 60% – it need not even be anywhere near 60%; a simple preponderance must not be ignored, if consistent), this is good evidence...
In determining whether or not such an ability exists, we would first predict – all else being equal – a number of 'hits' and 'misses' proportionate to the odds of someone guessing whatever it is under consideration at random. In a lab or equivalent setting this is particularly easy to do, especially with standardized cards, numbers, objects, etc., as in experiments that test for ESP. Next, we would perform the experiment and record the total number of 'hits' and 'misses', and compare them to the number we've already determined would represent pure randomness. The greater the number of 'tries' the more accurate would be the sampling, naturally, but we would expect, given a sufficient sampling, a percentage approaching the prediction of randomness if no psychic ability is present.
If the percentage of 'hits', however, is even modestly above that which would represent randomness (say, even 51%, or 53% or 60% – it need not even be anywhere near 60%; a simple preponderance must not be ignored, if consistent), this is good evidence of psychic ability. The number of 'misses' can be quite large, therefore, without suggesting an absence of psychic ability (and can be explained in terms of any number of other factors, including the ability itself being weak or non-optimal, lack of concentration on the part of the subject[s], etc.). It is the number of 'hits' vs. the expectation of pure randomness that is at issue.
Its not a special power just the mind doing math