Theory and research in the field of persecutory beliefs have identified a number of important psychological processes involved in clinical and non-clinical paranoia. This dissertation set out to investigate some of these processes. Firstly, the empirical evidence for the distinction of 'Poor Me' and 'Bad Me' paranoia (Trower & Chadwick, 1995) was reviewed systematically. Secondly, an empirical study with two phases aimed to investigate the contribution of key processes to paranoia in clinical and non-clinical samples. Investigated factors were: anxiety, depression, anger, attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, deservedness, submissiveness, self-attacking, self-compassion and experiential avoidance. The review found the distinction of 'Poor Me' and 'Bad Me' paranoia to have some validity and clinical usefulness; however, as yet not all of the theoretical predictions have been borne out in the empirical literature. The importance of the role of deservedness and its measurement was discussed. A series of one-way ANCOVAs found levels of a number of processes to distinguish clinical and non-clinical paranoid groups. Hierarchical regression revealed experiential avoidance to be a significant predictor of paranoia in the final model. A concluding section synthesised these findings and consideration was given to future directions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:592839 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Beck, Rosie |
| Contributors | Bentall, Richard P.; Sellwood, William; Kelly, James |
| Publisher | University of Liverpool |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/13913/ |
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