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Q: Find an article on a psychological condition ( No Answer,   2 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Find an article on a psychological condition
Category: Reference, Education and News > General Reference
Asked by: gamegeek-ga
List Price: $8.00
Posted: 30 Sep 2006 09:40 PDT
Expires: 30 Oct 2006 08:40 PST
Question ID: 769702
I am looking for an article that appeared, well, somewhere.  It may
have been the New York Times, but I'm not certain.  It was definitely
not an academic journal.  I'm also not sure when it appeared--but
almost certainly sometime after 2000, probably sometime around 2004.

The article was one of those narratives about a patient who comes into
a psyciatrist's or psychologist's office with an unusual problem.  In
this case, the problem was that that patient had a very active fantasy
life, consisting of fictional stories made up by the patient that were
so interesting that real life could not compete.  I believe the
fantasies were intrusive, in that the patient couldn't stop the
stories from coming into his or her head at all times, such that they
interferred with all other aspects of life.  These were stories composed in the
patient's head, but not hallucinations--this wasn't a case of
schizophrenia or some inability to distinguish between the stories and
reality, but more of compulsive--perhaps addictive--storytelling.

So far, I've searched the New York Times archives with keywords
Psychiatrist or Psychologist coupled with fantasies or stories.  I've
come up blank.  Although the article I'm thinking of appeared in a
popular publication, I'll consider any reference which contains
information about a patient with conditions identical to those
described above to suffice for an answer.  For example, I don't this
article may have been later incorporated into a book, or based on an
article in an academic journal.  If you can provide multiple links to
different articles about the same condition, I'll tip. :)

Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 30 Sep 2006 10:22 PDT
How about this article, from the NY Times?

Sometimes the Truth Is Not What Sets You Free 
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/health/psychology/25case.html?ex=1303617600&en=b4f06f22d6e1526f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Clarification of Question by gamegeek-ga on 30 Sep 2006 10:48 PDT
I don't think that is it, although I'll ask my friend, who originally
read the article and passed on the description.  the key difference
here is that the patient appears to believe his own fantasies, which,
I though, was not the case in the article I'm thinking of.  But I'll
definitely ask, and post again when I hear eitehr way.

Clarification of Question by gamegeek-ga on 30 Sep 2006 22:20 PDT
I talked with my friend, and she assures me that that was not the
story she read, and that it was as I described originally.

Clarification of Question by gamegeek-ga on 01 Oct 2006 17:56 PDT
Two comments--first, I raised the price I'm willing to pay for this a
bit.  Second, I suspect that if the article my friend is thinking of
had appeared in the New York Times, one of the researchers here would
have found it by now.  So I'm thinking it must have been in some other
publication.  As I mentioned originally, I'll consider a reference to
some other publication describing the same condition to suffice for an
answer.  I have access to academic journals, so sch a reference would
be OK, although my preference is still to find the original article.
Answer  
There is no answer at this time.

Comments  
Subject: Re: Find an article on a psychological condition
From: stanmartin1952-ga on 30 Sep 2006 13:16 PDT
 
Is this relevant:
http://www.toad.net/~arcturus/dd/stpdtable.htm
Subject: Re: Find an article on a psychological condition
From: gamegeek-ga on 30 Sep 2006 22:28 PDT
 
I don't believe that this is relevant.  (stpd)  While there is one
symptom in common, stpd seems to have a whole host of other symptoms
that are not consistent with the condition I am trying to find out
about.  In case I wasn't clear, I don't believe that the fantasies
were actually about the patient.  Rather, it was stories like you
might see on TV, etc.  There was, I believe, no confusion of the
stories with reality.  Rather, the fictional stories were more
compelling than reality, in the way that a TV show might be more
interesting than reality for an extreme fan of the show.

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