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Top 10 Interesting Psychological Disorders

Written by Alexander Burgemeester · Leave a Comment

I thought I would put this list together to highlight some of the strangest things that our minds can do when they
have gone o in their own direction. Some of these disorders are very damaging but luckily they are also
extremely rare so I wouldn’t worry too much about su ering from them but they’re something to think about.

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1. Paris Syndrome – A disorder that only a ects Japanese nationals and it can occur when they visit the famous
city. It is characterized by feelings of extreme culture shock when the realities of this multi cultural bustling
metropolis con ict with the romantic image they have created of the place. Some of the more acute symptoms
include anxiety, hallucinations, delusions, feelings of persecution, depersonalization and derealisation.

This could be a result of the extreme di erence in culture between Japan

and other parts of the world (particularly the western world) caused by the
fact that it is an island and the enforced isolation known as Sakoku which
was instated by the shogunate (leaders of Japan) between 1633 until 1853.

2. Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder – Commonly used in jest
to describe someone who enjoys
cleaning a bit too much OCD is
diagnosed when someone has a
need to perform certain actions
beyond what most would consider
a sensible amount. For example if someone has a need to turn a light on and o 10 times before they leave a
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repetitive behaviour develops in an attempt to quell the anxiety. This can then be habit-forming and afterwards
every time they have the thought they feel compelled to produce the same behaviour.

3. Dissociative Identity Disorder – Probably the most famous of the

disorders in this list, formerly known as multiple personality disorder, DID is
when a person has 2 or more distinct personalities that control a persons
behaviour alternately. A ecting between 1% and 3% of the population in
some way DID is one of the hardest disorders to diagnose and treat because
it has several cross over symptoms with other mental disorders and no
consensus has been reached on the best treatments. Most treatments at
the moment involve cognitive behavioural therapy and they try to integrate
the multiple identities back into a single personality.

4. Fregoli Syndrome – A rare psychological disorder that is often combined with

paranoia, Fregoli syndrome is when a person thinks that di erent people are in
fact all the same person just in disguise. This can then develop into a paranoid
state whereby they believe that this one person is persecuting them or perhaps
following them around. Also they can become confused about objects, places and
events and believe them to all be the same as well. This disorder is related to their
schemata or ‘mind map’ and so they will see someone who looks like a person they
know and then they will believe it is that person.
5. Cotard Delusion – Sometimes called
walking corpse syndrome this disorder
makes the person believe that they are
either dead, do not exist, are putrefying or
have lost all their blood and internal
organs. This delusion can then lead them
to believe that they no longer have the
need of food or water because obviously a
dead person doesn’t need those things. When the person is in this state it can understandably cause severe
depression and social withdrawal.

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6. Alien Hand Syndrome – As the name suggests this disorder causes the
su erers hand to ‘take on a mind of its own’. This alien hand acts independently
from the person and is capable of performing fairly complex tasks like undoing
buttons and working tools without the owner being aware of it. Alien hand
syndrome mainly occurs after brain surgery and especially split brain
procedures but can also happen after a stroke, tumor, aneurysm and other
brain trauma.

Sometimes this condition can cause the a ected hand to start to become nasty
or even aggressive to the owner by performing actions that will get the person
into trouble or physically hurt them. Often when su erers go into treatment
they describe a sense of dissociation or bad feeling towards this hand and it can,
in rare cases, lead to the patient wanting to self harm.

7. Capgras Delusion Theory – This is another paranoid delusion when the

person in question believes that someone they know is not in fact their best
friend but an imposter disguised to look exactly like them. This state of doubt
about identity can also be transferred to objects and even places. They can
then begin to believe that they are in a totally di erent place than the one they
are actually in. One other symptom that some people have experienced is
losing a sense of time.

8. Alice in Wonderland/Todd
Syndrome – This syndrome, which was
named after the famous book by Lewis
Caroll, causes the su erer to imagine
objects larger or smaller than they
actually are. This is a temporary
condition that can be brought on by
certain hallucinogens, migraines, brain tumors and it can be seen at the onset of Epstein-Barr virus.

9. Visual Agnosia – Every person has in their brains a series of connections from

the eye all the way to deciding what something is and what that means to you.
When you have visual agnosia those perceptions become jumbled and you can
no longer associate the correct meaning with the correct object so you might
think that its a great idea to shake hands with a grandfather clock. Out of the two
types of visual agnosia that scenario describes apperceptive agnosia. The other
type known as associative agnosia is when you can remember everything about
an object and what it is but you can’t say its name. Most people experience a
mild form of this when trying to remember the name of the song that is playing
but with associative agnosia you can’t remember the name of things like chairs,
tables or even people.

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10. Stendhal Syndrome – This very speci c disorder is a condition where

by you can faint, become dizzy, increase your heart rate or even
hallucinate when you are in a place with to much art or art that you nd
particularly beautiful. This condition is similar in a way to Paris Syndrome
because it can be brought on more easily if a romantic image of visiting
this place has been built up in the mind. Then when you get there you
become overwhelmed.

Please share. It really helps us a lot.

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About Alexander Burgemeester

Alex Graduated in Neuro-Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. He worked a few years in a nursing home where he
specialized himself in neurodegenerative disorders (alzheimer, parkinson), Personality Disorders and Emotional disorders
(depression). Now he specializes in sharing his knowledge on public websites. View all posts by Alexander Burgemeester »

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Alex Graduated in Neuro-Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. He worked a few years in a nursing home
where he specialized himself in neurodegenerative disorders (alzheimer, parkinson), Personality Disorders and
Emotional disorders (depression). Now he specializes in sharing his knowledge on public websites.

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