Tips For Communicating With a Loved One Who is Delusional, or Whom You Suspect May be Delusional

Some people who slip into psychosis have a rapid decline. I’ve heard accounts and read books about young men graduating from high school completely healthy and fine, and after the stress of moving and starting college, and the intense school load, a couple months into college life, descending rapidly into psychosis. This is a common time for psychotic disorders to develop in men. But many people go through something called the prodromal phase, which is a period of several years or more of less-intense symptoms such as derealization where the world doesn’t seem real and may seem robotic or like they are in a dream-state, cognitive distortions, which are like mild delusions – errors in logic, that are not as extreme as the delusions and thought disorders seen in a fully developed psychotic illness, anxiety or panic attacks, racing thoughts, fatigue beginning but being relatively mild, when the person was not fatigued before, brain fog entering the picture, but again being mild or moderate and not severe.

For many families their kid’s psychotic break hits them out of the blue, when he starts acting bizarre or incoherently, and terrifies them, even though it was actually building for quite some time, but they weren’t aware this was happening.

It’s usually at this point that they call the police because their kid is doing things like word salad which is where he strings together a series of words that don’t make any sense. Like “Fame, go forever, pizza, suspicious” or some other very strange combinations of words. Or perhaps their kid is on the roof declaring he has the ability to fly, and about to jump off. Or he may compulsively go on lots of trips and max out his credit cards, and find himself unable to problem solve to get enough money to get home, and you get a call from a concerned friend who says he’s acting bizarrely and to come pick him up. When before this he was always responsible and on top of things.

The police arrive and take him to the psychiatric hospital, or you take him. He is treated, usually comes out of psychosis with high dose anti-psychotics enough to be stabilized and to gain some awareness that he had a psychotic break, and released with medication with some very difficult side effects, and no education from the doctors and nurses about what he went through or how to manage his symptoms except for telling him what amount of the medication he is to take daily.

He may feel scared, defeated, may still be clueless about what really happened to him, and not know he experienced psychosis. Or he may know something about psychosis and adopt the view that his future is dismal and he will have this illness for the rest of his life, and that his life is over. Not knowing that for many people they can be high functioning with the right treatment and continue schooling and have a career and a family life and a normal life. Some people even recover completely (there’s a study that shows 50% of people in underdeveloped countries spontaneously recover from schizophrenia, a psychotic disorder. The rates are less in developed countries, but with medication and supplement protocols such as the Walsh protocol for psychotic disorders the rates are improved), but unfortunately he’s not told any of these things.

Your loved one may isolate and be depressed, and due to the delusions, and also the negative symptoms, have a very hard time with communication, at a time when communication may actually be crucial to him getting effective treatment, and you as the parent being able to help him monitor which meds are helping him and which meds make him worse or aren’t effective.

I will share some ways I’ve discovered to communicate effectively with someone in delusion.

Ask The ‘Whats’, ‘Hows’, and ‘Whys‘

One of the ways to effectively communicate with a loved one who is delusional, or who you suspect may be delusional, that I have discovered is to ask the ‘whats’, ‘hows’, and ‘whys’.

These questions lead to deeper communication that allows you to gauge the amount of contact with reality your kid is experiencing, and what their mental state is like. If you begin this in their teen years and beyond, it can help you to see if prodromal symptoms are present.

As people descend into psychosis, and even for some people who are fully in a delusion, the delusional thinking is often missed because it’s common for psychotic people to use the same words everyone else uses, but mean a different definition, one that isn’t grounded in reality.

Like philosophy writers who always preface their essays by giving their definition of the terms they are using, since words are often used to mean different things in philosophy, remember to ask for definitions and explanations.

Rather than seeming like you’re prying, this attention to detail often makes people feel heard and like you value their opinion. We live in an age when everyone wants to talk rather than to listen, and people really appreciate being heard and being asked questions that show you care about what they have to say and that show you’re processing what they are saying and thinking through their ideas.

So…if you’re having a conversation with your kid, and he says something like “The government is spying on everyone these days and it’s really bringing me down.” Ask him “What do you mean by the government; do you mean congress, the president, a certain political party? Tell me what you see going on?” Far too often the kid in psychosis is met with something like “It’s unfortunate the NSA doesn’t give us our privacy anymore, but don’t let yourself get too caught up in worrying about it”, and the kid’s terms for ‘government’ and ‘spying’ are assumed to have the same definitions as what the general populace, who aren’t in psychosis believe.

Thus the person developing psychosis and the non-psychotic family member end up talking past each other without realizing it.

People not in psychosis don’t think to question the person’s definition. It makes sense they wouldn’t think to do this. The only time in normal settings that a person uses a different definition for a word is if that person holds a different religious of philosophical belief.

For instance, when a pantheist says they asked God for wisdom, they mean a universal divine energy that permeates all things. When a Christian uses the Word ‘God’ they mean the Biblical divine Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are completely different concepts, yet the same word ‘God’ is used.

We might think to ask someone of a different faith what they mean by ‘God’, but among people of similar cultures and backgrounds, and especially with words where there are universally-accepted definitions, we’re not going to think to ask what someone means by them. Unless of course we know psychosis and cognitive delusions (less severe ways the brain becomes illogical) exist, and are educated about them. Then we can ask people what they mean by these common words, and gauge whether the person’s logic is on-point, or they may be slipping and needing help.

You might be surprised that what your son means when he says ‘spying’, is that the government is reading people’s minds.

You might be surprised to find out that what he means by ‘government’ is a secret society of demons in the disguise of men who are controlling the world and infiltrating the FBI and NSA.

Your son may be giving divine properties to the government, such as omnipresence, the ability to basically know wherever he is and track him no matter what, in a way that isn’t limited by the current technology of the day.

While it may seem obvious to someone without a psychotic disorder what the government is, you might be surprised to be met with something like “The way the FBI is reading everyone’s thoughts and inserting messages into their minds is a breach of privacy, and it’s driving a lot of people to develop anxiety disorders.” This shows your son clearly doesn’t have the standard view of the government and its involvement in our lives that matches with reality.

Or in the prodromal phase you may be met with something a bit less disconnected from reality, but that might have hints of being illogical like “I sent my application into the college of my choice, but I think the FBI confiscated it and didn’t allow it to get to the college because it’s been several months and I haven’t heard back from them.” This is much less delusional than thinking the FBI is reading people’s thoughts, but there’s still a mild break-down in the kid’s understanding of how the world works that shows errors in logic that could indicate his mind is having trouble connecting the dots. There’s also a mild element of paranoia. And cognitive symptoms too. What likely happened is he thought he sent the application and either forget to send it due to memory issues, or he made an error in the address. Brain fog and cognitive symptoms are common in people in the prodromal phase.

The whats help you understand how he defines concepts, to see whether he’s referring to real things and concepts in the real world, or concepts that don’t exist in reality. The hows help you understand the connections he sees between ideas and things, to see if these are accurate connections. And the whys help you see whether he’s experiencing delusional psychology, and whether he’s having delusions about the psychology of others and failing to understand common rational motivators and reasons for why people pursue and do the things they do.

It’s a common situation where someone in psychosis will believe they are a prophet getting messages from God. Due to how the psychosis distorts logic, the person can’t accurately add up that voices and visual hallucinations are likely a mental illness. They can’t see the hallucinations and voices are nonsensical, which would cue them in to the need to see a psychiatrist. Instead they come to the conclusion that they are a prophet receiving messages from God.

Not only do they believe they are a prophet, but their psychology also matches up with the faulty logic. So they also feel that being a prophet is what gives their relationship with God its value. It’s deeply personal for them. The same way that being a child of God and living to glorify Him with one’s actions and conduct and love is deeply personal for a Christian who is not in psychosis.

When there’s disagreement and tension and fighting between someone in psychosis and someone not in psychosis, it’s usually due to how psychosis rewires a person’s psychology, so that they don’t feel loved or respected by you, because they feel you’re dismissive and uncaring of their deepest values and deepest parts of themselves, and you feel like they don’t care about anything in reality and are just concerned with their grandiose or self-centered delusions.

When my dad passed away for instance, some of my family felt like I was cold and apathetic because I didn’t cry or share memories with them. What they didn’t understand was I was in psychosis, and I was communicating that whole time with celebrities through the Holy Spirit, who represented each of my family members. Through my delusion I was processing what had happened, grieving on the inside, and even trying to hold conversations with my family, because I couldn’t connect with them in the real world due to the fact I was in psychosis. What they didn’t know was this grieving process went on for years, and had many different stages. I had many different psychotic conversations with celebrities who represented family members, and received many different communications from them. I cared, greatly. But I had little shared reality with them in real life.

What’s really going on isn’t that the psychotic person is becoming more self-centered, or that the non-psychotic people are becoming calloused to the deepest values and concerns of the psychotic person. But rather, you’re both experiencing the psychologically painful rift in the relationship that occurs when a core family member enters a psychotic perception and “reality”, that is closed off from the real world.

It is true that when in full psychosis a person feels disconnected from their family, every person alive, all of reality (except maybe a small portion they can still navigate), their own selves which is fragmented, and even God. It is a very isolating experience. It feels like being stranded in antarctica, and you’re just living a survival story, trying to survive every day and do your part to bring about these grand things that you believe will really come to pass, like getting the celebrities out of the secret society and their conversion stories drawing people to God and many people finding salvation. Or escaping the FBI or other organizations that you believe are trying to kill you or stop your work.

You’re fully immersed in the psychotic world when fully psychotic.

This is like a death, or something close to a death, of the person and the relationship. It can be a temporary death, because many people in psychosis come out of it with medication, but as long as that person is almost 100% in a delusional world, there is a profound loss there. There’s also lots of confusion, arguing, disagreement, and hurt feelings. Each party feels mistreated by the other party. This is because there’s little common ground between someone in a delusional world and someone in the real world.

But there is some common ground, and knowing some key communication skills can help you reach that common ground with each other, and have a bond of respect and goodwill, while you look for and devise ways to get the person medicated so they can come more into reality and share more common ground with you and rebirth your relationship with them.

The Prophet Delusion

It’s common for the person to declare to be a prophet, and for the family to disagree and reply that they believe it to be a psychotic illness and not the gift of prophecy. But what they don’t realize is the psychotic person doesn’t actually have the same definition of prophet as they do. To you prophet means someone who receives messages from God (usually in visions) to give to God’s people or to the world. To them prophet means having a close, intimate relationship with God, and possessing the ability to glorify Him in their life and help others in a big way. Basically to have a legacy, and purpose, and meaning. The closest a person can be to God, is a prophet; that’s their definition.

Instead of telling them you don’t believe they are a prophet, and leaving the conversation there, ask them why and what really helps with the prophet delusion. Ask them what a prophet is, and ask them why being a prophet is so important to them.

They will say a prophet is the person who does the most good in the world, who glorifies God the most with their life. Being a prophet means I will be as close to God as its possible for a person to be, in a very special relationship with Him.

When you say they aren’t a prophet all they hear is that you believe they can’t accomplish anything important with their life, that they are an utter failure in your eyes, and that you don’t think they are a quality person who loves God.

Because they think the only way to be all of these things is in the concept of ‘prophet’, if you reject prophet, you’re rejecting that they are all those other things too and telling them it’s impossible for them to have those things that they really need and that everyone needs.

Encapsulated in the term ‘prophet’ is this concept of being a free moral agent who can glorify God with one’s life to the utmost, and will be honored by God.

Within ‘prophet’ is really a core, basic human right. The person is wanting the ability to make moral choices and leave a legacy with their lives, to make their mark on the world for good, and glorify God in so doing.

This is something that is a basic human right, and the objective purpose people were created for. But the psychotic person can’t articulate this basic human right in clear terms, calling it what it is. Instead they call this very core human desire and need “being a prophet” or “being called to be a prophet.”

So to strike against ‘prophet’ is to strike against the very foundation of meaning, in the psychotic person’s mind. It’s to go against the very reason for their existence and be in opposition to it.

Peter Bullimore who works for the Hearing Voices Network, and believes delusions are illogical beliefs the brain generates during psychosis, when it’s trying to reference real-world situations and people and places and events, but refers to them in a type of symbol language that is logically nonsensical, told us in a seminar that he believes when someone is struggling with this dilemma of believing they are a prophet or wanting to be a prophet, that the person is really struggling with not wanting to be psychotic.

He put it something like this:

If it turns out the person is really a prophet, then all those messages and communications – the auditory hallucinations – are messages from God, meaning the person is sane and not psychotic.

But if those messages and communications aren’t from God and are instead coming from the person’s brain, then that would mean they are psychotic.

So this dilemma of wanting to be a prophet is the person’s inner psychological struggle of wanting to be normal, wanting to be sane.

And I would add, of wanting what everyone wants, to make their way in the world and leave their mark on the world and forge a great destiny and leave a great legacy to the glory of God.

It’s a person grappling with the desire to be a moral agent and do meaningful things with their life, rather than struggle to understand right and wrong and reality, and to be trapped in their psychosis.

They are grappling with this dilemma in a psychotic way and explaining it in psychotic terms because they can’t state it plainly and clearly or plainly and clearly understand what it is they are grappling with because they are trapped in the psychosis.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but judging by the way people answer the question “Why is being a prophet so important to you?” it really does seem to add up.

When Peter Bullimore said that believing you are a prophet or wanting to be a prophet was a common delusion, and put it in those terms, I was shocked to hear that the thing that was most important to me was a common symptom and struggle people in psychosis experience, and his explanation that the person was wanting to not be psychotic and grappling with the psychological struggle of being psychotic, made sense to me and added up in my mind.

So personally I think he’s on to something. And there are others in the psychiatric and medical communities who believe that when a person has a delusion these delusions correspond with real-world situations and struggles that are being referred to in a nonsensical way. This is a common theory that scientists and psychiatrists have, though not everyone shares this belief.

There is something called psychodynamic therapy for psychotic disorders, that shares this same basic premise, and the emotions behind the delusions are explored and the therapist encourages the client to find the real-world situations that match the emotions behind the delusions, and this can integrate their perception and help them be more connected with the real world.

I gained much from attending Peter Bullimore’s seminar, and it came at a crucial time in my life when I was out of psychosis, but still emotionally connected with my former delusions. I didn’t believe them logically, and knew them to not be true at that point, but I couldn’t connect my emotions, my goals and motivations, and sense of meaning completely with real-world things, and these perceptions were still connected with delusional concepts, in particular the prophet delusion, and I also had a pastor delusion at this time.

Peter Bullimore helped me to see that my selfhood had become fragmented, and I would later learn more of the science behind this and come to understand that the emotional parts of my brain had become disconnected from the logical parts, and I’d been “rewired” by my illness, a term neuroscientists call ‘altered connectivity’.

Knowing this was extremely helpful, both emotionally and as a self-assessment to be able to see how much more work I needed to do on my brain with my treatments, to bring my sense of self and my perception together in a congruent way.

His lectures helped me understand these emotions weren’t unimportant, and that they were supposed to be connected to logical concepts rather than ignored. I’d been trying to ignore them and just focus on logic, hoping that at some point my emotions would integrate and come back into the picture, but I found that this didn’t work as there should be a sense of meaning that goes with profound logical concepts in the Bible and in the world, and if it’s not there you experience a dis-jointing of the perception that I think ends up affecting both your logic and your emotions.

He helped me see better what was going on with me, and that my prophet delusion (at this point I knew I wasn’t a prophet and had no delusion about that, but I still wanted to be one, and felt hurt that no matter how much praying I did, God wouldn’t make me one and call me to the prophetic office), was me wanting something in the real world, which helped direct me to connect my emotions with real-world things, and I did some CBT work on this that really helped me.

I also worked with someone trained in what’s called the Maastricht Interview that Peter Bullimore teaches and does. Working with her helped me gain further clarity. The questions the interview asked helped my brain really grasp that my delusions and the associated feelings I had with them over the years, were really me and my brain, and that I’d just become disintegrated and disconnected. I knew this, but it really hit home in a deeper way from working with her, and I felt my brain become more congruent.

You can watch Peter Bullimore’s seminars on Youtube by typing his name in. He also has in-person seminars you can sign up for in the USA and in the UK.

Peter Bullimore came out of delusions without medication by processing the emotions he experienced from years of abuse, and others like him have seen a reduction in psychotic symptoms from processing emotions of trauma. He’s out of delusions, but still hears voices, however emotionally processing his trauma reduced the loudness of his voices. They are softer now and less intense and distressing.

Psychosis is due to stress. In my case the stress was toxic black mold and purely physical causes. But for many people the stressor that sets off their psychosis is physical or sexual abuse. In my case I needed to get the mold mycotoxins out of my body to get better, but if abuse is the cause, then processing the abuse and healing from it has gotten some people out of psychosis.

Another woman who reports that she healed this way is Tracey Higgins. She wrote a book called The Girl on The Bridge and has been interviewed in different podcasts that you can watch by searching her name on Youtube.

Point Them to the Real-Word Thing or Concept that Corresponds With the General Goal and Aim the Delusion is Centered On.

So instead of saying you disagree and leaving the conversation at that, instead state that you disagree and then explain why. Do some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with them (CBT) using the truth found in the scriptures as your way to gauge reality, where you lay out what you believe to be truth, and then explain how the world really works. Don’t try to force them to see things your way, be respectful with them, and then ask them to hear you out on this and respect your opinion as you’ve done with them. You’ve now seen how they are off in their definition of prophet. Show them that all those things they are needing and looking for aren’t found in being a prophet, and redirect them to where they are found, and assure them you want them to have all those things, see the need for those things, and believe they should have them.

Explain that prophet is just a job or role, it’s not the same concept as character, and while yes God did choose some very godly people to be prophets, and there’s a correlation, there will also be people in heaven who did more with their lives and benefitted more people and glorified God in their lives more than some prophets did. Making a difference is something God will always give you the ability to do – to the extent you pursue it and surrender your heart and life to Him. You aren’t held back in making a difference because you aren’t a prophet. There is no glass ceiling that prevents someone who isn’t a prophet from making the greatest impact possible with your life. The Bible promises “You shall seek me and find me when you search for me with all Your heart.” God isn’t holding some people back from finding Him and making them second class citizens and then making some people prophets and allowing them to find Him and know Him to a greater extent simply because they are prophets. God promises “God is not mocked; what a man sows He shall also reap.” If you seek God with all your heart, seek to glorify Him with your life, you will reap the just reward of pouring yourself into that important goal. You will find Him to the extent that you seek Him, and glorify Him to the extent that you surrender your life and selfish heart to Him to allow Him to change you.

Point them to prophets in the Bible who weren’t good people, such as Balaam, who deceived and destroyed many of God’s own people due to a desire for monetary gain. Being called to the role of prophet wouldn’t necessarily make them close to God or a good representative for God. Explain how there will be people in heaven who weren’t prophets who did more good in their lives than some who were prophets. That character and effectiveness in helping others really isn’t tied directly in with being a prophet.

Point them back to how every person should be evaluated by their character and their choices and actions, and that this is just and right, and God will not deal with us unjustly by evaluating people by whether they were given the job of prophet, rather than on their character and willingness to surrender to Him and work for Him.

Point them back to the eternal just principles on which God deals with us and with which we are to deal with each other.

When they see that you don’t think less of them, aren’t against them having an important calling, and don’t see them as a loser, they will feel respected, even if you don’t believe they have the prophetic gift. And reasoning with them in this way can often help someone gain a better grasp on reality. Especially someone who has been medicated and is cooperating with a psychiatrist or Functional Medicine doctor and being treated.

A lot of times the person in a delusion doesn’t know what the real-world thing they are really looking for is. And they don’t think they can find what they are needing in something real. They think that only the delusional belief meets their needs and holds God’s blessings.

But God certainly wouldn’t create us with core human needs that can’t be met in real-world things, like Himself for instance.

And people grounded in reality don’t usually know that the person is searching for meaning and needs help understanding basic concepts about the world, to find their place in it and understand how it works, so they often don’t offer these basic explanations.

But once you know the person needs this help, then you can begin to have conversations that really break down what things are and how they work, and this is a kind of CBT that can help your loved one, especially as they are coming out of psychosis with psychiatric medication.

When you see a person talking about (or trying to meet and achieve) needs, goals, desires, and dreams that don’t match up with the actual human psychology that God has given to human beings, you can know that person is confused, and may have cognitive distortions or delusions. While God has created much variety between individuals, there are some core things that make up human psychology that we all have, and outlier goals and desires aren’t real human psychology. For instance, if a person sits in a box all day and says they feel happy because they are really a cat, and it feels natural to sit in a box, and they do not enjoy sitting in a chair and they say it makes them feel uncomfortable and out of place, you can be sure that’s not a real human desire, because God didn’t create human beings to get satisfaction out of sitting in a box like a cat. They are experiencing psychotic psychology, where the inflammation from a mental illness rewires the brain so that they can get comfort and feel the feelings we would associate with feeling at home in our own skin, with actions cats do rather than ones that people do.

Similarly, when a psychotic person says they want to be a prophet, or feel called to be a prophet, or desire to be a prophet, and when asked about it they equate being a prophet with having agency and leaving a legacy, you can be sure they aren’t actually wanting to be a prophet. They’re wanting what every person on earth wants – agency and legacy – and this is a normal human desire.

This isn’t to say that some people through history haven’t wanted to be prophets, but if you were to question those people about what being a prophet meant and did for them, they wouldn’t respond that it gave them agency and closeness with God. A sane person recognizes that everyone has agency, and that people who are close to God have been kings, shepherds, common folk, preachers, and people from all walks of life, not just prophets. He doesn’t withhold a close relationship with Himself to anyone and there’s no first-class citizens who are prophets and everyone else is a second-class citizen.

Becoming Sane is Really the Only Thing That Will Meet Their Need

If Peter Bullimore is right though, and thinking you’re a prophet means you’re grappling with this idea that maybe you’re psychotic and wanting to be a prophet so the voices are in fact from God rather than a mental illness, then what will make your loved one feel the most secure is if you help them get out of the psychosis. And this is really the only thing that’s going to shut off those urgent, yearning feelings to be a prophet.

Treatments that help stabilize their mind, reduce their mental symptoms, and give them back their agency and ability to forge a meaningful destiny, will bring them ultimate comfort and peace. But due to the fact they are in psychosis, they are likely to resist such treatments if you mention psychosis. However, many people in psychosis can tell they have anxiety, racing thoughts, depression, insomnia, and other mental and physical symptoms besides psychosis. You can often convince them to get on anti-psychotics to reduce racing thoughts and stabilize mood. And then they will also come out of the psychosis too in many cases.

Usually kids in their teens and twenties are forming their beliefs about the world, and will enjoy in engaging in discussions where you ask them what they believe about various things and why they believe that.

We don’t define terms enough in general. I’ve noticed a divide in conversations, with people talking past each other due to this, even among those without delusions or cognitive distortions. For instance, people of older generations will assume they know what younger people mean when they use terms like “equality” and “fairness”. And vice versa. But they often do not mean the same concepts when they use these same words. Defining our terms can really help to clear up misconceptions, and also help people practice logic, which is really necessary for good brain health and possessing good judgment.

Try to Find the Real World Things or Situations the Emotions Match

My aunt was in full psychosis at a time when I’d come out of psychosis with lithium, and I spent some time supporting her and trying to encourage her. We couldn’t convince her to see a psychiatrist, and she’d been involuntarily hospitalized in the past, but they only kept her a few days and then released her and she hadn’t come out of psychosis. (Unfortunately this is all too common that they don’t hold people long enough for the anti-psychotics to work to bring the person out of psychosis.) But we were able to convince her to take supplements – not due to psychosis which she didn’t believe she was suffering from, but for her health. She wanted to look and feel younger, and so we sent her anti-aging supplements which also really help with brain health. For a while she seemed a bit more connected with reality than she had in the past and more stable.

Knowing what I know about delusions from having my own experiences with them, it wasn’t hard for me to see that all the emotions she was experiencing tied to the delusions corresponded with her love for her family and her desire to see them all reconciled. Abuse and half the family siding with the abuser had caused a drastic rift in the whole family. Most of the family thought reconciliation was not possible, and split with the other side permanently and went their separate ways, but my aunt was the only one who tried, until she entered into full psychosis, to reconcile them together, and bring the gap, caring for her mother who had sided with the abuser, and living with her and forgiving her.

When my aunt slipped into psychosis, she heard and saw family members all around her. She also saw their clones and believed they had clones. She would see people who were locked up in storage bins and trapped and who needed help. Most of her delusions were about abused people who needed help and no one could hear their voice except her. All these emotions of her past abuse, and wanting to help her family, and for them reconcile came out in her delusions. She wanted to talk about these things, because these delusions were her brain’s way of referencing the real-world things she cared about most. But people wouldn’t talk with her about the delusions, so she went a long time without people ever speaking with her about the things that mattered most to her, and that must have felt very isolating and psychologically painful.

I don’t think people should talk with her about the clones as though they were real. This would be lying, and I don’t believe lying is ever a solution. But what I did when I spoke with her is I would refer to the real world things the emotions corresponded with. I’d tell her I loved my grandmother when she mentioned seeing her or one of her clones, and wanted to be a united family too. I didn’t tell her I believed my grandmother had clones, which is what she wanted me to talk about.

But as I conversed with her in emotional language about how I loved my grandmother and wanted us to be a united family too, my aunt stopped arguing with me about clones and started agreeing with me about things, and sent me hearts in our text conversations and smiles. We managed to connect emotionally and find agreement and common ground, even if we didn’t agree about the clones and the crying people.

Now obviously this wasn’t enough help for my aunt, and she deserved to be treated for the psychosis (We need to have the laws changed to hold psychotic people for 2 weeks against their will at the hospital – the amount of time needed to bring most people out of psychosis according to studies). But it was a way to communicate with her that I loved her and shared her desire for our family to be reunited, and felt her pain that they were estranged. It was a way for me to make her feel heard and cared about, and less alone.

Xavier Amador is a man who had a brother with schizophrenia and psychosis. His brother refused medication and their relationship was tense for many years, until Xavier discovered a way of speaking with his brother where they could find common ground. This way of communicating he called LEAP – Listen, Empathize, Agree, and Partner. Agreement here doesn’t mean you affirm the delusions. It means you agree to disagree. Partner means you find common goals, like when I sent my aunt supplements for brain health, because they are also anti-aging supplements and she wanted to look and feel younger. Xavier’s brother never came out of the symptom of anosognosia which is unawareness that he was psychotic. He believed he was not psychotic. But he agreed to take medication for other reasons, like to build rapport in his relationship with his brother. The medication helped stabilize him in other ways, but not in the area of gaining awareness.

Xavier wrote several books containing the LEAP technique: “I’m Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help!, and “I’m Right, You’re Wrong, Now What?”

I read his books and absolutely loved them. I love how his approach is so respectful of people in psychosis, and treats them like people. His love for his brother and his general respect for humanity comes out in the pages of the book. He seems like a very gentle, patient person who treats people with dignity and worth.

And the techniques are very helpful, not only in communicating with people in psychosis, but in communicating with anyone with different beliefs whom you care for and want to respect and build a relationship with.