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In psychology class today, my teacher spoke of a client she had. This boy was about 17 when he started presenting with symptoms. Notably, he thought he was a dragon. On the internet he found people to reinforce his belief - there was a website where people thought they were all dragons in a past life, and retained "dragon remnants" in this life. In fact, when this boy would meet with my teacher for a session, he would take care not to sit on his "tail," and needed to readjust often to be comfortable. Sometimes he would complain that his back hurt because the chair back left no room for his spinal spikes.

The boy developed an internet relationship with a fellow dragon, a 30 year old woman in Texas. They would allegedly meet on the astral plane for sex, and they were to produce a dragon baby together.

At first the boy thought he was going crazy, but when he found this dragon group on the internet, it validated all that he believed. They told him that any psychologist would tell him he had this or that disorder, but not to believe them - he was truly a dragon, both in the last life, and a human with dragon remnants in this life.

Now, most people in the class had a goofy expression on their face throughout this story. There was some laughter, and basically people were amused. But I had to think about it... plenty of belief systems believe in reincarnation, and even past lives as different animals. Many believe in trance-like states, whether it be the astral plane or not. Yet generally we have a greater respect for such belief systems. Is it because we are just "used" to hearing about these things in the contexts of the major belief systems, so it does not seem crazy to us? Is it that we really do think it's crazy, but don't want to be labeled as intolerant?

My teacher's diagnosis was that this kid was an emerging schizophrenic. When it comes to mainstream religious beliefs we're usually not so hasty to throw around such labels. Is it enough to say that if you're not mainstream, you have a disorder? What the hell is mainstream anyway?

I'm sorry if this post offended anybody. I don't want to foster intolerance, it's just that this sort of got to me - on one hand, one fringe group was validating the belief that he was a reincarnated dragon. On the other hand, a different group, in this case the "mainstream," validated the belief that he was crazy. Who has authority of the truth here? Who or what decides where the threshold of "acceptable" beliefs ends and "crazy" beliefs begin?

I would presume there were other symptoms, but I have shared all that she shared with us. He did masturbate to "dragon-furries," if anyone wanted to know that. Furthermore, at present, last she heard was that he moved to Texas to be with that woman, and he still believes he is a dragon.

In the end, I guess I'm asking more than one question. More than just examining this type of situation and placing judgment upon it, one has to ask: who owns the truth? How do you KNOW the truth when you see it?

On a side note, this topic is sort of related to Otherkins. http://main.otherkinalliance.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=25

The real thing that sets apart psychosis (aka, diagnosable diorders) from neuroses (simple character oddities) is how the belief impacts your life. If the belief is not adversely influencing the person's ability to get along with themselves, other people, or the environment, then there isn't a problem and a diagnosis would not be made. It's the difference between someone who hears 'voices' in their heads as spirit guides and can turn the voices OFF... and someone who hears 'voices' but can NEVER turn the voices off. Those who are able to sense the conventionally unsenible have frequently been called 'crazy' by their mundane counterparts. That's nothing unusual. But as far as diagnosis goes, the abilities and beliefs must signifigantly disrupt their operation in normal society.

And that should tell you something interesting about the DSM and psychological d diganoses. It's relative to the society and the current cultural status. For instance, homosexuality, not all that long ago, was regarded as a mental 'disorder.' How accepted something is has an influence on whether or not it is regarded as a disorder. There's no doubt about it that if Jesus did return, he would probably be outcasted as insane. That's sad. So in a nutshell, society and the DSM decides what the threshold of acceptable beliefs is. Rather wacked up, as its subject to ideaological fads of the day, but that's just the way it is. Given the increased push of 'scientists' and science 'supporters' of science being the only measure of truth, won't surprise me if religious beliefs period someday get relegated to the DSM (I put those words in quotes, for as in my mind... science... which fosters open-mindedness... would never make such ascertations. Any 'scientist' or 'supporter' who does is twisting what science is supposed to be).

You never have a certain measure. Which is precisely why we use majority rule and general consensus to decide on things, or some other systematized structure like science. We have to assume. We really don't have a choice at some point. The distinction comes with what people do with those assumptions in given sittuations an in terms of how they treat others around them.

No, you do not have to surrender to faith for absolute truth.

Mathematics for example, is an absolute truth; one's own existence serves as another example of an absolute truth.

Outside of these absolute truths, we realize that little else can be known as absolutely as these (pardon my redundancy) absolute truths; and so we do not call them truths, we call them theories, hypotheses, or heuristics. Meaning that there is some sort of evidence to state that something has happened in the past upon experimentation. This is not the same thing as faith, for this comprises a belief based upon a fact about what has been observed in the past; differing from faith in the respect that faith is belief based upon the absence of evidence.

Now, I can grant you the question of what happens if our past is called into question due to solipsistic like skeptical reasoning of can we sure that the past really exists; although, if this is your stance, nothing productive will arise.

Now, to answer your questions regarding when do beliefs cross over into disorders and who decides what's acceptable or normal:

As far as the kid believing he was part dragon, I'd probably have diagnosed him with some disorder as well. I do not know if I'd have diagnosed him with schizophrenia, since from your account, he hasn't presented many of the other characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia. He does however seem to present symptoms of some sort of delusional disorder; which can be a symptom of many disorders. His believing he was a dragon has obviously affected his behavior around others, which is one sign characteristic of disorders in general - the taking care not to sit on his tail, and seats being uncomfortable for his back spikes. Seeing as this behavior deviates from the accepted norm, it would be expected of a psychiatrist or a psychologist to give some sort of diagnosis for the individual.

Therefore, what exactly constitutes a disorder? As has been noted previously by Starlock, is the extent to which the belief interferes with ones life. Thus, behavior that is seen as adversely affecting one's own life, whether it is dangerous, neglectful, etc, or their interactions with other people (or lack thereof) will be called a disorder.

I believe the next question is who determines what normal is, and the answer is that society as a whole determines this. If society determined that they were going to foster schizophrenics as people with special insights, then schizophrenia would not be a disorder. This only becomes complicated when a society of made up of millions of individuals with many different ideals and beliefs; however, even then it is still decided by the society as a whole what is acceptable and what is not; the main difference is the amount of weight put on each of the unacceptable behaviors. For instance, murder may be weighed more heavily than schizophrenia because murder involves a set of lethal actions against another whereas schizophrenia does not always involve such actions.

I also regard mathematics as not an absolute truth, but a conditional truth. You have to assume that the set of premises it rests on are true in order for anything else within the mathematical system to be considered true. And yes, Descartes through his method of doubt was able to conclude that, even if all else was only serving to deceive him, that he must at least exist, otherwise there would be no one there to be deceived! So yes, I guess I exist, but the nature of who I am, really, and the nature of my existence may not be known. I could be plugged into the Matrix for all I know.

All of our methods for defining facts and truth are fallible - we're relying on human senses and reasoning, and we know they are not perfect. That's why we have to rely on a sort of faith, that THIS time, in this situation, THAT person, that person is in his right mind, and he knows what he's talking about. As far as believing in the past, or relying on the sun coming up again tomorrow, those are functional truths - it's easier to get by believing them (even if you can't be sure you know it).

I'm not trying to be difficult. There is in fact a branch of philosophy called epistemology that strictly deals with how we can know anything, so I'm not the only one to stress my little head over such a thing we generally take for granted.

As far as the dragon kid, it's been duly noted that society defines what counts as sane or insane. Deviating from social norms is likely to get notice, as well as having habits that interfere with your interactions with others. However, Wikipedia made a point: If you're in a society where stoning people is a given, and you refuse and call it barbaric, now YOU are insane, or at least have some kind of personality disorder, by psychological definition. So is there no better measure of sanity than majority opinion? Or does sanity and insanity not exist at all, and is it merely a product of human design?

I'm surprised not to hear anything about the ACLU being involved with this case. Declaring him schizophrenic for those beliefs could very easily be viewed as discrimination.

When it comes to religion and belief in general its impossible to draw a line between feasible and total bullshit. At least, if you want to be tolerant and fair.