Archetype Writing Blog

QUESTION: I have A LOT of questions pertaining this one idea since I'm so determined to get the character's psyche right. I'm writing a story in which my character has un-diagnosed bipolar disorder.

• How would this, if left untreated, affect a sociopathic character?
• I know that bipolar disorder gets worse if left untreated, but how much worse could it get before the character is driven to suicide?
• HOW, specifically, would the disorder get worse?
• What would have to have occured in his childhood to spark the desire to kill?
• What would prompt him to choose his victims? Is it just random or would a small force (specifically, accidentally insulting them) set him off?
• Would the antisocial personality disorder account for the bipolar symptoms, or would they have two completely different sets of symptoms?

We have two different diagnoses going on here, right? Bipolar I disorder (the worst form of bipolar d/o) and Antisocial Personality Disorder (the official name for sociopathy).

Let’s make sure we get each one defined first. Bipolar disorder means your character has both devastating major depressive episodes and full-blown manic episodes. To be diagnosable, these episodes should cause “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”

You also note that the character has not been diagnosed – in other words, no counselor or doctor has said “this is bipolar disorder” and suggested treatment.

The most notable way that bipolar disorder may affect sociopathic behavior is that during manic episodes, when the character’s judgment and impulse control go down, he may do things that are more hurtful to others than someone might otherwise. In other words, the manic episode exacerbates the sociopathic behavior.

I know that bipolar disorder gets worse if left untreated, but how much worse could it get before the character is driven to suicide? HOW, specifically, would the disorder get worse?

If bipolar disorder goes untreated, the character will begin to swing more rapidly between manic and depressive episodes, and the episodes may become more intense. “Rapid cycling” bipolar disorder means that there are at least two cycles a year (mania, depression, and then again, mania, depression). In other words, the character is cycling over months rather than over years. Ultra-rapid cycling occurs over weeks to days, and ultradian cycling happens over days.

Note that rapid cycling happens more as someone becomes older if the disorder is untreated. Also note that your character doesn’t have to be cycling ultra-rapidly if you want him to be moody. Since people with bipolar disorder have a mood “thermostat” that is easily knocked off balance by things like stress, he can be a mercurial sort even if he isn’t cycling rapidly from up to down and vice versa.

Suicide is not always a given with a mood disorder.  Many people consider suicide to try to escape the pain of such extremes in mood, but others do not.  And of those who consider it as an option, only some choose to act on it.

What would have to have occurred in his childhood to spark the desire to kill?

Okay, now we’re talking about the sociopathy. Typically there are a few different things that can trigger the type of dangerousness you’re interested in. The most common are abuse and severe neglect. Children who grow up around violence tend to learn violence as an acceptable way to deal with problems.

Some genetic mutations, brain abnormalities, and frontal lobe (of the brain) injuries can also contribute. You can probably get away with that generic info, but if you want more details, I suggest picking up a copy of my forthcoming book, The Writer's Guide to Psychology: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior.

What would prompt him to choose his victims? Is it just random or would a small force (like, specifically, accidentally insulting them) set him off?

Most people with APD recognize that breaking the law will get them locked up if they get caught. So they’re probably not going to flip out on someone for something small…unless, of course, they’re in the middle of a manic episode, when their judgment is extremely poor.

Would the antisocial personality disorder account for the bipolar symptoms, or would they have two completely different sets of symptoms?

Definitely two different sets of symptoms! They’re two totally different disorders.

Need accurate and easy-to-understand information on bipolar disorder, antisocial personality disorder, or why villains act the way they do for your story? I've got you covered with lots of information on all of those topics in The Writer's Guide to Psychology: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior at your favorite online bookstore today! Pre-order a copy now!


Remember, if YOU have a psychology in fiction question you want to see answered here, use the Q&A form on the Archetype site.

QUESTION: My MC (Andrew) exhibits many symptoms of borderline personality disorder, including splitting. With the splitting, he basically thinks of himself as a "good" Andrew and a "bad" Andrew.  In his thoughts, the good part of him (whom he calls Leif) talks with the bad part.  At first, it's just jumbled thought, sometimes doesn't make sense, and as it progresses, it develops two distinct voices.  He thinks the bad Andrew is just worthless and a street whore (he's a prostitute) and the good Andrew is who he is trying to change into, to fix his life.  I don't think this is split personality or multiple personalities because they are aware of each other, and it really is like two aspects of the same thing.  Does this make sense, psychologically?  Is it still borderline, or is this something else?

ANSWER: It sounds like you've got the gist of splitting, which is pretty commendable, since it's a tough concept. Typically, though, adult splitting is seen as a kind of defense mechanism, so people aren't really aware that they're doing it.

Let me explain splitting a little more, just so that makes sense, and then we'll talk about what might work well for your story.

According to object relations theorists like Melanie Klein, newborns essentially believe that the world is part of the same entity as them. In other words, they can't differentiate between themselves and the world. Later, they differentiate between "me" and the world, but Mommy (or Daddy, or whoever the primary caregiver is) is seen as part of "me." Still later, the child begins to understand that "me" and Mommy are different, but they have trouble seeing "good Mommy" (who acquiesces to them and fulfills their needs) and "bad Mommy" who says "no" or is otherwise frustrating or disappointing as the same person. This is splitting, and it's natural around 3-4 months of age. As we get older (i.e. around 6 months of age), we learn to see "good Mommy" and "bad Mommy" as part of the same person. That's why we can love and hate someone at the same time.

This natural process is interrupted in people who have borderline personality disorder, typically due to trauma of some kind (usually abuse). As a result, these children never stop splitting other people and either idealize or devalue them. They may swing back and forth very quickly from one side to the next, but they aren't really able to simultaneously integrate the good and bad.

People with borderline personality disorder never learn to regulate their emotions, so they have extremely tumultuous, even destructive relationships with others as they frantically try to get others to help them deal with a world they feel they can’t deal with alone.

You say Andrew has other borderline tendencies, but if splitting is the primary reason you’re using the borderline diagnosis, it might be simpler to move away from that diagnosis. (Borderline personality is an extremely painful disorder for the person who has it, and they often have depression, anxiety, PTSD, and incredibly disruptive behavior patterns, and that’s a lot to try to portray!)

At the same time, you’re right, it doesn’t sound like Andrew would qualify for dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder). His relationship with his alter ego, Leif, isn’t dissociative enough.

It sounds to me like Andrew has just named a normal ego state and is relating to it in a way that works for him. Which is entirely possible and probably is not in itself diagnosable.

Everyone has multiple ego states. That’s normal. For example, the “you” that goes to Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws probably acts a little different than the “you” that goes out for a raucous evening on the town with friends. Both parts are you, but they’re different sides or facets of you.

Some people are more aware of these different ego states than others, especially if they play very diverse roles in life. That sounds like the case for Andrew.

It’s even pretty normal for people to give their ego states names, though they may think of those ego states as “the party girl” or “the writer” or whatever. People also adapt their names based on the setting they're in. For example, an Andrew might be Mr. Whomever at work, but Drew with friends and Andy to his lover. And I know people who go by their given names (e.g. James) in formal situations but by a middle name or nickname that's completely different in informal settings (e.g. Tim).

If you want or need a diagnosis for Andrew, based on the brief description you gave me, I’d probably lean toward some kind of a mood disorder, maybe dysthymia (a chronic, low-grade, but extremely wearing depression) or a major depressive disorder (which is more crippling at its worst, but tends to get better and then worse and then better again over the years). An anxiety disorder is another possibility.

For more information on borderline personality, dissociative identity disorder, mood and anxiety disorders, treatments, therapies, and character-building, be sure to pre-order a copy of The Writer's Guide to Psychology: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior at your favorite online bookstore today!

I finally saw Shutter Island last night. I didn't know a lot about it other than that it was Leonardo DiCaprio on an island that was an asylum for the criminally insane. I'd also heard that it was the same kind of mindbender as the 2000 film Memento, which I enjoyed.

I really enjoyed the movie, and if you haven't seen it, it's worth watching.  (And I'm going to be careful not to include spoilers below.) In addition to the story itself, it's an interesting study of psychology as it stood in the mid 1950s.  Psychotropic medications, most notably antipsychotics, had just entered widespread use, but earlier, more destructive treatments like lobotomies were still being widely used (and misused) on difficult patients.

It's too bad that they didn't place a little more emphasis on how mental institutions at the time were self-sustaining.  Patients helped do things like farm, and in addition to providing sustenance, it gave them purpose and responsibility and dignity and improved their overall mental health in many cases -- which makes a lot of sense when you consider that the alternative in many cases was to be stuck in a closed room.

One of the things I loved most about the film was the portrayal of DiCaprio's character's experiences as a soldier in WWII.  He was part of the regiment that freed Dauchau, and as the movie progresses it becomes clear that he has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) complete with intrusive recollections, recurrent nightmares, amnesia for certain events, hypervigilance, and irritability.  And rather than using washed-out frames to portray the memories, Scorsese hyper-saturates the scenes, giving them a vibrant, even jarring hyper-realism.

The one thing that drove me crazy through much of the movie was the assumption that the new antipsychotics (chlorpromazine, or Thorazine, in particular) caused hallucinations and delusions when in fact they do the exact opposite.  But it was all explained in the end.  I promised not to spoil the film for you, so I'd better stop there...

Definitely worth a watch, though, if you haven't seen it.

I'm really looking forward to seeing another mindbending DiCaprio movie next weekend: Inception.  If that one has as much psychology as this one did, I'll be writing another one of these in a week! (But hey, if you've seen it, no spoilers for me in the comments, okay?  I wanna be surprised! :)

Need accurate and easy-to-understand information on antipsychotics, lobotomies, historical or modern mental institutions, and disorders like PTSD for your story?  I've got you covered with lots of information on all of those topics in The Writer's Guide to Psychology: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior at your favorite online bookstore today!  Pre-order a copy now!

On Monday we talked about the importance of having a website for your book/s.  Today we're going to talk about how to get that website built.

Storyboarding

The first thing you need to do is sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and storyboard a bit.  What is your primary graphical symbol going to be? What do you want your menus to say?  Will you have submenus?  How will you lay them out?

To the right you'll see what a basic storyboard looks like for me...and how that might translate into a completed site.  My sites rarely look just like my storyboards, but they're often quite similar.

Once I've come up with a basic storyboard, I do a lot of thinking in Photoshop and Dreamweaver.  I try combining things in different ways to see how they look.  I went through nearly 15 iterations of the Writer's Guide to Psychology website before I was happy with the design.  To the right and below are just three of them (the bottom one being what I settled on).


In other words, don't worry if it takes you a while to get it right.  Trial and error is often the best way to figure out what's going to work for you and your book.

Actually Building the Site

I'm one of the lucky ones -- I've been creating webpages since 1995, and I love doing it. It's fun for me to design a site; create the graphics, text, and other media; and tweak until I'm happy.

You may not feel that way, or you may not yet know how to build a website on your own.  If either of these things is the case, you have several options.

1. Hire someone to build the site for you.

• Pros: You don't have to get your hands dirty.  You pay someone and the work is done.
• Cons: You're trusting your site to someone else, and you don't get the same opportunity to play around until the site feels just right.  Having someone else build a site for you an also be expensive, especially if you rely on them to do all your updates.

2. Use a website that provides templates.

• Pros: You can build a site on your own without having to understand how the coding works.
• Cons: These template sites vary widely in quality, ease of use, and functionality. Many (if not most) of them scream amateur. Some require you to have some basic knowledge of how the web works.  Some are costly.  You are limited by the template you choose, especially if you're plunking down hard-earned cash to use a particular one. And there's no guarantee someone else won't be using exactly the same template.

Your Domain Name

If you're not using Blogger or WordPress (or sometimes even if you are), you'll want a website address (aka a domain name) that refers to you or your product.  Fortunately, domain names are inexpensive, often around $10 a year.  GoDaddy.com is an easy place to buy a domain name, though I prefer SSL Catacomb Networking, as they're often cheaper and I like the control they give me over my domain names.

Dot-com (.com) names are the most popular because everyone automatically tacks ".com" onto a website address, but you can use all kinds of domain extensions (.net, .info, etc.) if .com is already taken.  Though website domain sellers often encourage you to buy every extension under the sun, that's really not necessary.

Once you have your domain name and host service, you're ready to upload your finished site. (I use Website Source because you can do pretty much everything with it...including shell in if you want to. Don't worry if you don't know what shelling in is...it's the ability to do high-level customization of your site on the server side.)  Programs like Dreamweaver and Expression Web will help you upload straight from the program.

So...if you have a website, what approach are you using?  Do you like it?  Would you do anything differently if you were starting over?

A PS on websites: I was going to do a major overhaul of the Archetype site, paring it down quite a bit, but in the end I decided it was best to let the site stand mostly as-is, unwieldy though it may be. After all, my goal in writing the book has been to add to the information available to writers on accurate psychology, so it seems almost counterproductive to be reducing the information already available online.

My forthcoming book, THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY, now has its own website and blog!

As I've made this journey, I've been sharing the ins and outs with you, so I figured I'd talk a bit about the importance of websites in promoting your book.

I'm going to quote PR THERAPY author Robin Blakely, because she says it so well:

It's mandatory in today's world to have an Internet presence.  Currently, that internet presence must, at a minimum, consist of an e-mail address and a website or landing page.

Why is a website so crucial?  Well, partly because the first thing many of us do when we hear about a product that interests us is go online to find out more. A website dedicated to the author/book in question serves several purposes:

1. It legitimizes the author and the book.

You'll all have to forgive me for being so very in absentia of late. I've had a lot going on with the upcoming book, but I'm excited to finally be able to unveil some information: the cover, the title, and the publication month.  Since you're all writers too, I thought you might be interested in the process we went through to reach these decisions -- read on!

I turned in my completed and polished manuscript last October to the fab team at Quill Driver Books (hereafter referred to as QD). We took the holidays off and then dove into January with some fine-tuning in anticipation of the book listing going out with Quill Driver's fall catalog.  (Yes, it's just now spring, but remember, publishing almost always operates months in advance.)

First, we changed the title from Nervous Breakdowns and Psychopathic Killers: The Writer's Guide to Psychology to The Writer's Guide to Psychology: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment and Human Behavior.  


Why?  Well, my original goal was to create a title that grabbed the browser -- NERVOUS BREAKDOWNS AND PSYCHOPATHIC KILLERS! -- and made her want to pause long enough to look at the subtitle and then the book.  However, QD made a really good point: many, many people browse books online, and the subtitle often isn't visible.  So we needed a title that made clear the book's purpose.  We banged around some possible titles and subtitles and finally came up with one that not only clearly explained what the book was about, but was interesting, too.

Next came the book cover.  QD had a design firm come up with three different cover options, all of them quite different.  I  asked some of the people I was closest to what they thought; meanwhile, QD discussed the options internally and also asked the book distributor folks for their input.  In the end, we chose a design that best seemed to convey the concept captured by the new title.  Seeing the book cover is kind of like putting on a wedding veil -- you realize in a way you hadn't before that this is really going to happen!

Most recently, I got a publication month: December 2010 -- just in time for holiday shopping!  The book isn't yet available for pre-order, but it should be soon.  I'll be sure to let you know.

In the meantime, I'm starting to think again about publicity. At the top of my list is the Archetype website.

I first created Archetype several years ago while I was building my initial platform. One of my goals over the next few months is to rebuild the Archetype website.  There's a good chance I'll be starting from scratch and creating something that aligns even better with the book than the current site.  Never fear -- I'll definitely be keeping the Q&A, though I may switch it over to a blog format -- blogs are so easy to update!

If you have thoughts or suggestions on the new site, by all means, now is the time to speak up!

More soon!

QUESTION: A young girl is taken prisoner along with a number of her family members. The women are separated and sent to separate prisons from the men, and my character eventually ends up being held in isolation in a nunnery, though not outright treated cruelly. After eight years, after her father wins his rebellion, she is returned home. What would the emotional effects of this be?

Those are all kind of extreme reactions, but in a lot of ways that's the nice thing about dealing with individual differences -- you can make the story go in the direction you need it to if you understand the basic psychological possibilities. That is, we can say "she could do x, y, or z depending on the temperament she was born with" and you can say, "Ah, y would work best for my story."

So having the reactions above toward men -- fear -- are one possibility.

Another would be to have her want to please them, but I see that being the least likely possibility. If she's mostly spent time around women, she's either going to see women as strong, capable creatures who don't necessarily need men, or as victims of men's behavior -- it depends on the messages she got as a captive. If she was constantly being told in some way that "this is the evil men do," then she will see women as victims and be more obsequeious with men. If men simply weren't a part of these women's lives, though, I think it's more likely she would just see men as strange and different and women as capable. I see her being very cautious around men. They're strange creatures, and how to understand strange creatures? You sit back and observe. I think she'd be a sponge, watching how other people react to men, how they react to each other, how they treat her. She might even respond to them the same way she has learned to respond to other women, and be confused when they don't always respond the way she expects. How analytical she is will depend some on how smart she is, and how curious.

You can go in whichever direction you want with her feelings about her father. It would probably depend on how she remembers him -- as distant and punishing or as kind and loving. It would also depend on the messages she was given about him. If the nuns constantly told her she was there because of her father and seemed angry or disapproving, she'd pick up that attitude.

Finally, given that she needs to get married and whatnot, she might also feel some resentment toward men for changing her life so profoundly. You and I might think of being isolated as horrible, but people adapt to the situations they're in and find ways to survive. Change is hard, and going from being isolated to being around lots of people would probably leave her wishing at times that she could just be left alone, or even that things hadn't changed. Because while being isolated might not have been fun, it was familiar.

You can combine several reactions as she re-integrates into society -- just make sure her changes aren't sudden flips, that they happen gradually and that we see enough of what's going on with her to get why maybe she went from being terrified of men to being willing to sleep with one. :)

Remember, if YOU have a psychology in fiction question you want to see answered here, use the Q&A form on the Archetype site or send me an email at w e b m a s t e r (AT) archetypewriting (DOT) com. (Take out the spaces in the first word and please use Q&A in your Subject Line!).  If you would prefer to have the question answered on the QueryTracker.net Blog, you can email your question to c k a u f m a n (AT) querytracker (DOT) net. Again, please use Q&A in your Subject Line!

QUESTIONS: 1. What kind of therapy would a teenage girl go through after she's been in an abusive relationship? 2. Are there any books or websites you could recommend for more information dealing with therapy post break-up? 3. Since there is a new love interest in the MC's life, would he be involved in any sessions?  4. Is there a way for him to learn how to be there for her, or is that something that is never considered? 5. From what I've read, girls who've experienced relationship abuse may have posttraumatic stress disorder after it's over. Do you have any other resources you'd recommend?

• PDF Article: Beyond Victim Blaming: Feminist Therapy and Battered Women
• Online Article: Theory and Techniques of Feminist Therapy
• I have not read Lenore Walker in a long time, but she is one of the experts on DV.  You might check Amazon or your local library to see whether they have copies of her work.

3. Since there is a new love interest in the MC's life, would he be involved in any sessions? 

1. I saw a bunch of people wearing similar tails at DragonCon. What's with the wolf tails? Is it a Twilight thing?  
2. What exactly is this guy trying to convey by attaching a wolf tail to the back of his motorcycle?  Because I'd bet quite a bit of money that the message he's trying to send ain't the one I'm getting. 
3. What's up with those people who attach big metal balls to the back undercarriage of their trucks?  Because that's messed up too.  (I did a little Googling. They have all kinds of not-so-clever names, and they've been banned in some states. Unfortunately, Ohio is apparently not one of those states.  If you haven't seen them and you really want to put yourself through it, you can see some pictures here and here. No more explicit than what you're probably imagining, but maybe not so good to click at work or around small children who might ask awkward questions.)

I went to DragonCon over Labor Day weekend.  It was pure chaos, spread out across four massive hotels with nary a sign in sight to direct you most of the time.  DragonCon has panel tracks, and there was a writing track, so I trekked my way up the hill to the Hyatt and then down into the bowels of the place in search of a panel called Strong Female Protagonists.  Ah, I thought.  Someone was going to talk about the Anti-Bella.  Yay feminism!

Not so much.

Some of the authors on the panel talked about how their female protagonists aren't really strong -- they're just so incredibly vulnerable that they have no choice but to buck up a little bit to survive.  Others talked about how their heroines' strength was born out of how much said heroines hate themselves. (Which is, sadly, a cliche of the urban fantasy genre.) It felt like half of them were apologizing for female characters who were seen as strong.

And then the whole thing devolved into a discussion of how explicit your sex scenes should be. 

You know what I learned from the panel?  How incredibly uncomfortable our society still is with strong, independent women.  So uncomfortable, in fact, that people retreated into a discussion about the most primitive way for men and women to relate: sex. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good conversation about sex as much as the next person, but not when it's a way to avoid the elephant we really came to discuss.

In fact, the only truly useful part of the panel was when one author mentioned that the role of Lt. Ripley, the heroine of the Aliens movies, was originally written for a man.  When Sigourney Weaver was cast instead, nobody bothered to rewrite the script. What we got was one of cinema's most unapologetically powerful women.

My favorite strong female character is probably Jennifer Garner's Sydney Bristow from TV's Alias series.  I was so impressed with Sydney's toughness and independence because it was balanced with heart and intelligence.  Sydney was competent and confident, and nobody questioned that.  If she and her partner Michael Vaughn got in a tight situation, you know who fought their way out?  Well, they worked together, but Syd just happened to be the better fighter.  Sydney did dress up and emphasize her sex appeal from time to time, but it was a tool in her arsenal, her way of taking advantage of stereotypes, and just one of the many approaches she was capable of using.

Who are your favorite strong female protagonists?  Why do you like them?

Following my post on the double bind theory originally developed to explain why people develop schizophrenia, a couple of people asked me to write more about double binds.

I said:

Double-bind theory is Gregory Bateman's 1950's-era proposition that what causes schizophrenia is repeated no-win dilemmas in the child's family life. In other words, the child was repeatedly confronted with statements that contained two contradictory statements (i.e. a double bind). Because of the child's attachment to the caregiver, he was eager to do as the caregiver asked -- the problem was that by meeting one demand, he would be defying the other.

So what are some examples of double binds, people asked? Not necessarily with regards to schizophrenia, but in general?

First, it's important to understand that most human communication doesn't involve words. In fact, only 7% of communication is attributable to the words' explicit meaning.  Fifty-five percent of communication is body language, and the remaining 38% is vocal inflection and tone.  So a double bind may or may not involve two explicit contradictory statements.  The contradiction may be between body language and words, or between tone and words.

Sometimes double binds are called "no-win situations," though double binds are often psychologically more complex than the average no-win situation.

The double bind happens like this:

1. The individual is given one command, with an explicit or implied "or else."  The individual needs the relationship with the person giving the command, and therefore feels obligated to obey.
2. The individual is given a contradictory command verbally or nonverbally.
3. Sometimes other rules are imposed to keep the person from escaping the double bind.  Usually there is something keeping the person from remarking on the paradox, either because she doesn't truly understand the paradox, or because the situation prohibits her from commenting on the paradox to help her resolve it.

For example, imagine a character who has a temper and withdraws love when something upsets him.  Now imagine that this character insists that he will leave his partner (or otherwise stop loving her) if she doesn't provide him with negative feedback he knows she holds.  Suddenly she's trapped in a double bind.  If she doesn't give him the negative feedback, he will withdraw love.  If she does give him the negative feedback, he will withdraw love.  If she tells him that he's providing her with an unfair situation, he will withdraw love.  Several of these messages are nonverbal, but they're there.

Here are a couple websites that address double binds that you may find helpful.  Both give examples.

• How to Handle Double-Bind Questions
• Changing Minds.org's Entry on Double Bind Questions

As I'm writing, I keep thinking about the movie Saw.  The villain, Jigsaw, confronts people with double binds; I think that's part of what makes the first movie so intriguing psychologically.  He provides each victim with  something horrific that he can stop only by doing something just as horrific.

For example, in the first movie two men wake up, chained across a filthy washroom from each other.  One victim, Dr. Gordon (remember, doctors are taught to "do no harm," and this value is important to Gordon) must kill the other man; otherwise, his family will be killed.  But that's not the real double bind.  The double bind is that there's another alternative -- Dr. Gordon can also saw off his own leg to get away and go try to save his family himself.  There is nothing unethical about sawing off your own leg, and you can even hope that Dr. Gordon will know enough about the human body to tie an effective tourniquet.  But both alternatives are so abhorrent psychologically that Gordon (and the watcher) are paralyzed.

Creating truly paralyzing psychological double binds for your characters will raise tension and make the story intriguing.  Here's how to do it:

1. You must establish your hero's values so we see there is really no out to his situation.
2. You must raise the stakes high enough that each alternative is truly perilous for your hero.
3. You must demonstrate in some way that the villain will truly follow through with her threats if the hero does not choose one of the (psychologically unacceptable) alternatives.
4. You must not be afraid to go there psychologically yourself.  (This is what holds a lot of people back from a truly great double bind in their fiction, so really think about this one.)
5. You can't remain paralyzed by the situation.  Once you paint your character into a truly awful corner, you have to force him to make a decision.  Part of what makes Saw so shocking is that Gordon does make a decision, and it really is awful.
6. You need to acknowledge the fallout of that decision.  If the alternatives are truly awful, there's going to be fallout of some kind, and that should be awful too.

It scares a lot of people to really Go There; that is, to really go through all six of the above steps. It scares them because they have to own up to the fact that they imagined something really awful and inflicted it on their characters.  It scares them because they don't want to sully their shining hero with a truly awful decision.  It scares them because they don't want to have to make a truly awful choice, and they must if the story is to continue.

It's okay to be scared.  Write with the fear, share it with your characters, and see where that takes you.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this post is intended for writing purposes only and does not represent psychological advice.

QUESTION: What would a sibling of a person with schizophrenia function like? What are the traits of a schizophrenic family bind that I used to hear about?

ANSWER: Because schizophrenia is a biological disease, siblings of people with schizophrenia are 10 times more likely to develop the disorder than other people;  they are also at greater risk for schizophrenic spectrum disorders like schizotypal personality disorder and schizoaffective disorder.  In other words, some siblings may have schizophrenia-like tendencies of their own, even if they don't have the full-blown disorder.

Double-bind theory is Gregory Bateman's 1950's-era proposition that what causes schizophrenia is repeated no-win dilemmas in the child's family life.  In other words, the child was repeatedly confronted with statements that contained two contradictory statements (i.e. a double bind).  Because of the child's attachment to the caregiver, he was eager to do as the caregiver asked -- the problem was that by meeting one demand, he would be defying the other.  Because he was presented with such double binds on a regular basis, and because he doesn't have the cognitive maturity to know how to choose one statement over the other to escape the double bind, he eventually escapes from the extraordinary stress the double bind causes by retreating from the "real world" and into psychosis (i.e. delusions and hallucinations).

Double-bind theory has fallen out of favor with regards to schizophrenia for two reasons.  First, we have so much data that demonstrates a biological cause for schizophrenia, not an environmental one.  Second, double-bind theory is nearly impossible to test, so there is little empirical research that can support it.

There is research, however, to support the idea that a problematic family environment can contribute to the relapse of someone who's been treated for schizophrenia. Most notably, people with schizophrenia are likely to relapse when their family is high in expressed emotion (EE).  Expressed emotion consists of three parts: criticism, hostility, and emotional overinvolvement.

People with schizophrenia are extremely sensitive to stress, and being treated with constant dislike, disapproval, rejection, disrespect, and the assumption that they are not capable human beings is enough to stress anyone out!

So even if the siblings in your story don't have schizophrenic tendencies themselves, you could make them somewhat critical and hostile people who show a lot of expressed emotion toward their brother or sister!

Hope that's helpful!

Remember, if YOU have a psychology in fiction question you want to see answered here, use the Q&A form on the Archetype site or send me an email at w e b m a s t e r (AT) archetypewriting (DOT) com. (Take out the spaces in the first word and please use Q&A in your Subject Line!).  If you would prefer to have the question answered on the QueryTracker.net Blog, you can email your question to c k a u f m a n (AT) querytracker (DOT) net. Again, please use Q&A in your Subject Line!

QUESTION: How realistic is it for a man in his early twenties to have few conscious memories of his childhood? What could account for this volume of lost information (if it's even possible)?

Additional Information: The protagonist was put up for adoption at age two, because his mother had died and his father was unable to support him. After only a few months, he was adopted and raised by an older couple. He has convinced himself that his childhood somehow doesn't "count" because of his father's absence. He is also convinced that he can restore a traditional father/son relationship, and is obsessively looking for him. It seems he holds little or no value in his life with his foster parents, so I can see how he could ignore those years to the point of outright forgetting them.

ANSWER: It's plenty realistic, if it's happening for the reason it normally happens.

What you're talking about is referred to as "repressed memories," or memories that have been pushed down/away from the conscious because they're too painful to recall. Repression, in other words, is a defense mechanism. Painful can mean a lot of things. Humiliating, scary, incredibly sad, confusing, etc.

Not knowing much about your story, I would suggest that perhaps you put the protagonist up for adoption just a bit later in life. I think you need to give him a bit more time to attach to his dad and theoretically have made some memories to repress. I mean, let's face it, most people's first memories are from age three or four or even five years old in the first place. This is arguably because a) The brain hasn't developed far enough to retain memories in an adult way or b) The child hasn't yet developed enough language to store the memories in a way that can later be retrieved by the adult brain.

If your protagonist is put up for adoption at age five or six and then has few memories of his childhood, perhaps including after he got adopted, you've got something pretty darn realistic as far as repressed memories go. It would also help if the couple who adopts your protagonist is not an ideal family. They can be good people, but perhaps they don't really know how to relate to a child and so they're distant, or aloof, or just extremely busy with their own lives. Or maybe they're not great people--not abusive, per se, but maybe they're cold and critical, and your protagonist unconsciously puts his father on a pedestal and that's why he's obsessive about finding him as an adult. I could see someone discounting his life with his adoptive parents if they were never really "there" for him emotionally, and yearning for a connection with this father he's built up in his head.

I hope that's helpful! Let me know if you have additional questions!

Remember, if YOU have a psychology in fiction question you want answered, use the Q&A form on the Archetype site or send me an email at w e b m a s t e r (AT) archetypewriting (DOT) com. (Take out the spaces in the first word and please use Q&A in your Subject Line!)

Here are two of my favorites:

Phrase Search

Erich Fromm is one of my favorite philosopher/psychologists.  He wrote this fantastic paper called "On Disobedience," in which he explains why disobeying authority is sometimes the truest form of doing what is right.  If you Google erich fromm on disobedience (I'm too lazy to capitalize sometimes, and Google doesn't care) you get a list of sites that list, quote, or talk about the paper.  But say that's not what I want. I want to see if the paper itself is online.

The trick is to put quote around a short phrase from the paper itself exactly, including any punctuation. (Personally, I try to avoid using punctuation, but if there is any, you  must use it exactly.) Now, I'm geeky enough to know the first couple of lines of the paper by heart, so I put a phrase in quotes beside my original search.  Now my search query looks like this:


Now I'm only getting sources that include that exact phrase.  Unfortunately, it's a quotable quote, so what I ended up with is a bunch of websites that sell bad term papers to students.

So I need to pick a more obscure phrase from the paper.  I get out the handy-dandy book that contains the paper and search


Bingo.  Now I have a Google Books result.

But that's still not good enough.  So I'm going to pick an even more obscure phrase that's less likely to be someone's quotable quote.  So I pick something that really captures the style of Fromm's writing but isn't likely to be quoted anywhere but in the actual article:


Now I have three results, including a web-based copy of the article.  Ta-da!  You can read it here.

Excluding Terms

From time to time I Google my name.  (Come on, admit it, you do it too.)  My excuse is that sometimes when I work with journalists, they don't tell me they're using a quote I gave them.  And sometimes Google Alerts don't catch those articles when they're posted online.  So I Google myself in search of them so I can print them for my expert portfolio.

Until the internet age, I thought I had a unique name.  Turns out there are other people out there named Carolyn Kaufman.  (Humph.)

If you search my name, my information pops up to the top (ha! take that, other Carolyn Kaufmans!), but it turns out that there's also a Carolyn Kaufman who's a former professor and the CEO of a corporation, another who's an RN, and another in Orange County who says she has "Indigo Children" -- kids who have special powers to see the future.  (Holy oh noes.  What will this do to my professional credibility?)  There are a few others out there, too, mostly Twitter and Facebook links and marriage announcements. There's a Carolyn J. Kaufman (not me), a Carolyn C. Kaufman (not me), and a Carolyn A. Kaufman (also not me). Which leaves me a lot to sort through.

So the first thing I'm going to do is make my name into a phrase search to exclude any results with middle initials, because I don't usually use mine: "carolyn kaufman"

Then I'm going to start excluding phrases.  In other words, I'm going to tell Google not to give me search results if they include this term or word. So to remove all the Indigo Children listings, I type a minus sign in front of the word I want to avoid:


Fantastic, now all the Indigo Children listings are gone, but let's say I want to exclude all those other CKs I mentioned, too?  Well, I just keep excluding terms:


That search leaves me with a Google search page that includes only one listing that isn't about me.  I'm pretty happy with that.  But let's say you're even picker.  So I note that the other CK in the list of my results is from California, so I just add that to my list of exclusions:


And so on.  I can also make things more specific by including my unique credentials.  For example, I have a doctorate in clinical psychology, a Psy.D., so I can add that (note that I am adding it, not excluding it, so there is no minus before the psyd):


Ooh, now we're really getting somewhere.

If you're name-searching someone, you should also use common variations of their name.  If you're looking for a Dave, for example, also try searching with the name David.  If you're searching for a John, also try Jonathan, Johnny, and Jon.

Congratulations, you are now a Google Search Ninja!  There are more weapons in the Ninja Arsenal, and as I said before, if people find this really helpful, I'll see about writing about more of them

I am a Google ninja. I can find darn near anything (or anyone) on Google, because I know how to use all its secret tools. And it has a lot of secret tools. Journalists I’ve worked with sometimes call or email me asking me to help them find something on the internet. I'm just that good. (And totally modest about it, too.)

I'm going to do a short series today and Monday to teach you how to use the same mad ninja skillz.

Today we're going to look at basic searches and Google search tools. On Monday we're going to look at my favorite advanced search tools. If I get an overwhelming response, I can add additional parts to the series.

One little caveat: It can be scary to realize just how much information about you is available on the internet. You are not anonymous online. If someone really knows what they're doing, they can track down all kinds of free information about you by using just your email address or just your name. We'll look at name searches tomorrow -- you may find them especially useful if you have a detective in your story.

Google Basics

Most people know how to conduct a basic Google search. You type a word or words into the Google Search box and go. You can even type your query in the form of a question.

So let’s say I want to learn more about plagiarism. I just type plagiarism, and I get results like Plagiarism.org, which explains what it is and how to avoid it; the Wikipedia entry; and the Purdue OWL, which is the college’s writing help center.

Maybe I want to learn about anti-plagiarism software, which compares a paper's contents to a huge database of written material. I change my query to anti-plagiarism software.

Basic Built-In Google Tools

Did you know you can use Google as a calculator? A dictionary? A spellchecker? Here's how.

Calculator: Simply type the equation into the Google search box, and Google will give you an answer.

• For example, 5*9= or 6/3=

Dictionary: Type define and the word you want to define, and you will get back a list of definitions.

• For example, define anorexia

I'm not a procratinator, really. But sometimes I don't push myself hard enough with my writing schedule. Writing a nonfiction book with a publisher deadline has certainly taught me that I have to push myself the entire time so I can get to the finish line with not just a complete project, but also one that's of excellent quality.

When I was in high school, I got my papers written long before anyone else even started. Same thing with college. In graduate school I had to learn to stop doing that, because when my classmates started asking questions of the professor, the assignment would sometimes morph into something else. Which meant I had to rewrite it.

But when I had 9 months to write an entire nonfiction manuscript, I was like "aw, no problem." I mean, 50,000 words in 9 months? Come on, I wrote that many for NaNoWriMo in one month!

Turns out that writing the sort of nonfiction I'm writing is just a teeeeensy weensy bit different from NaNoWriMo. Whodathunk?

As you all know by now, my nonfiction project, which is going to be published by Quill Driver Books, is to teach writers--especially fiction writers--to use psychology accurately in their stories in far more depth than my website on the same topic. (Don't worry, I'll let you all know the publication date the instant I find out!) So, writers won't embarrass themselves anymore by confusing schizophrenia with multiple personalities, or by showing people having actual full-body convulsions during electroconvulsive therapy.

The trick to all of this is that I have to do a lot of research to make sure I'm getting things accurate. In other words, it's not good enough that I "know" something in my head -- I had to find written evidence to back everything up. Not because this is going to be like a peer-reviewed journal article with a million citations, but because I'm supposed to be the expert here, and I'd darn well better have my expert information straight. I have two full 4" binders full of journal articles, and then shelves and shelves of books I've referenced. At any given time over the past few months, you could walk into my writing room and find towers of reference books.

Anyway, so I started writing back in February, before the contract with Quill Driver was completely hammered out, because I wanted a head start. I did some great interviews with people who worked in mental hospitals and pounded out about half the chapters (unedited).

In May, my awesome agent Kate, who's reading over my chapters after I finish each one (never, ever let anyone badmouth a boutique agency to you--getting that kind of personal attention is such a help), suggested I create a schedule for when I would complete the remaining chapters so she'd know when to look forward to each batch.  (I also have to mention my fantastic readers here, who are looking at my chapters before I send them to Kate and helping me clear up anything that's confusing.)

So here's the schedule I sent her:

June 1 - Ch 1-5 (5 ch -- these were attached)
July 1 - ch 6-8 (3 ch)
August 1 - ch 9-10 (2 ch)
September 1- ch 11-12 (2 ch)
September 15: TOC, index, etc.
October 1, 2009: publisher due date

July nearly killed me, with 3 chapters. I mean, I wrote more than half of what I'd gotten done so far (ie 5 chapters) that month. I may not be a procrastinator, but I'd been far too lackadaisical about my writing schedule. Still, somehow I got it all done. This month was kind of rough, too, especially because I burned myself out a bit last month, but I managed. Now I just have to get through August and get my final chapters done.

When everything's written, I'm going to print the whole thing out and read through it with a red pen, trying to clean up any rough edges. I believe in having everything as polished as possible before it goes to an editor. I know that when I edit someone else's work, if I'm dealing with big things I ignore the small things. So when I edit my own work, I try to get all the big things so the editor can teach me new ways to be a better writer with her edits.

Oh...and my contract also says that the book will be published within x months of me submitting the manuscript...assuming the manuscript is satisfactory. If a writer submits a rotten manuscript, it can negate the entire deal. No pressure, right?

So what are you working on, dear Reader?  How do you keep yourself on track with your writing?