Effective strategies for coping with paranoid thoughts: A qualitative investigation

ABSTRACT

The study outlines the effective coping strategies that people with paranoid ideas utilize in dealing with distressing paranoid thoughts. All texts sent to and uploaded onto the “coping tips” section of the paranoidthoughts.com website, as a response to a call for people with paranoid thoughts to share their coping strategies, were thematically analyzed. The themes produced were subsequently mapped onto the main categories that emerged from the literature on coping with paranoid delusions. Contributors to the website were found to employ a variety of direct strategies for coping with paranoid ideas, which, in accordance with the relevant literature, can be grouped to approach coping strategies, which involve rational coping and activity-based strategies, detachment coping strategies, including distraction and engagement in activity, and finally interpersonal/social coping strategies, which include social support and social control of ideas. They were also found to utilize various indirect strategies of coping with paranoid ideas and the ensuing distress through seeking quality of life, physical health care, and strategic planning of one’s life. The study largely confirms the well-documented range of strategies employed for coping directly with paranoid thoughts. The role of self-care in buffering or easing the effects of paranoid thoughts on one’s mental state and life seems to be neglected and could provide a direction for future studies of coping with paranoia.

KEYWORDS:

• Coping strategies
• paranoia
• persecutory delusions
• recovery
• thematic analysis

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Professor Daniel Freeman for giving us permission to analyze the material uploaded in the webpage, of which he holds copyright, and to publish the results.