Abstract
Psychopathology is often studied and treated from an individual-centered approach. However, studies have shown that psychological distress is often best understood from a contextual, environmental perspective. This paper explores the literature on emotional contagion and symptom transmission in psychopathology, i.e., the complex ways in which one person’s psychological distress may yield symptoms among others in his/her close environment. We argue that emotions, cognitions, and behaviors often do not stay within the borders of the individual, but rather represent intricate dynamic experiences that are shared by individuals, as well as transmitted between them. While this claim was comprehensively studied in the context of some disorders (e.g., secondary traumatization and the “mimicking” of symptoms among those close to a trauma survivor), it was very scarcely examined in the context of others. We aim to bridge this gap in knowledge by examining the literature on symptom transmission across four distinct psychiatric disorders: PTSD, major depression, OCD, and psychosis. We first review the literature on emotional contagion in each disorder separately, and then we subsequently conduct a comparative analysis highlighting the shared and differential mechanisms underlying these processes in all four disorders. In this era of transdiagnostic conceptualizations of psychopathology, such an examination is timely, and it may carry important clinical implications.
Highlights
Psychopathology is most often studied, and treated, from an individual-centered approach
We aim to bridge this gap in knowledge, by attempting to identify the existence of symptom transmission and its unique and differential mechanisms, across four distinct psychiatric disorders: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and psychosis
Emotional contagion and symptom transmission are well-documented phenomena, that have been occupying the minds of mental health professionals and scholars for decades
Summary
Psychopathology is most often studied, and treated, from an individual-centered approach. It has quickly become apparent that no individual lives outside of a broader human context, inhabited by parents, children, spouses and one’s community as a whole This realization, which became present in both the psychoanalytic [2] and empirical [3] literature, was subsequently the advent for the arrival of systemic approaches, family psychology theories, and contextual models of psychology, all of which have acknowledged psychological processes shared by more than one individual. Cognitions and behaviors are not strictly intrinsic entities which stay within the borders of the individual, but rather represent complex dynamic experiences that may be shared by individuals, as well as transmitted between them While this claim was comprehensively studied in the context of some psychiatric disorders (e.g., PTSD), it was very scarcely examined in the context of others. We begin our review with one of the most well-known conceptualizations of psychopathological transmission—emotional contagion
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