Morbid jealousy can occur in a number of conditions such as chronic alcoholism, addiction to substances other than alcohol (i.e. cocaine, amphetamines.), organic brain disorders (i.e. Parkinson's, Huntington's), schizophrenia, neurosis, affective disturbances or personality disorders.
It can, in extreme cases, lead to mental health conditions like anxiety or depression. It's also a symptom of mental health conditions and commonly occurs in the presence of bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and other personality disorders.
Measures of jealousy
As we described above, delusional jealousy is a psychiatric phenomenon in which an individual has a delusional belief that their spouse (or sexual partner) is being unfaithful [6]. It is also known as morbid jealousy, pathological jealousy, conjugal paranoia, or Othello syndrome [6].
Research has identified many root causes of extreme jealousy, including low self-esteem, high neuroticism, and feeling possessive of others, particularly romantic partners.
Delusional jealousy is a psychotic disorder and should be treated mainly with antipsychotics, while obsessive jealousy resembles obsessive-compulsive disorder and should be treated with SSRIs and cognitive-behavioural therapy.
Why do we feel jealousy? Therapists often regard the demon as a scar of childhood trauma or a symptom of a psychological problem.
Pimozide is a derivative of diphenyl-butly-piperidine and is one of the purest dopamine antagonistic drugs available. It is a potent and long-acting antipsychotic drug, devoid of autonomic and psychomotor sedative effects and also has a low parkinsonian liability at therapeutic dose levels.
The delusion often causes serious results. Various treatments have been tried to treat pathological jealousy. Pimozide is said to be effective for pathological jealousy in middle-aged patients. However, this treatment is limited in elderly patients because of the adverse side-effects caused by pimozide.
First, a partner who projects his or her jealousy onto a person may be displaying signs of narcissism. The partner may not be able to cope with the negative emotion, so he or she defends against it by “seeing” it in a mate. The partner then feels entitled to accuse and criticize the person.
Although an individual may present with morbid jealousy, the underlying psychiatric problems may show major illnesses like bipolar mania in up to 15% and schizophrenia 20%, among other diagnoses like depression and alcohol-related disorders. Morbid jealousy may not only be delusional, but also obsessional in nature.
They doubt the loyalty of friends and the faithfulness of their spouse or partner. They can be extremely jealous and may constantly question the activities and motives of their spouse or partner in an effort to justify their jealousy. Thus, people with paranoid personality disorder can be difficult to get along with.
Retroactive jealousy is closely related to a broader OCD subtype called relationship OCD, or ROCD. People with ROCD may experience intrusive thoughts and worries that cause intense anxiety and distress about their relationship, fixating on doubts and uncertainties that others would likely shrug off as inconsequential.
Jealousy is an emotion reflecting weakness and desperation. Females are predominately associated with emotion, which may be why they are thought of as being more jealous than males. Males are generally associated with “tougher” forms of emotion, such as anger.
If you're the target of jealousy, you may feel like someone (usually a partner or friend) is trying to control your life. They might do things such as check up on you, try to tell you what to do (or not do) and how to act, or limit your contact with friends and coworkers.
Negative, anxious thoughts in relationships cause worries about the relationship, what-ifs, worst-case scenarios, and dread. These manifest as jealousy, anger, distrust, and paranoia.
There is not one root cause for someone's jealous behaviors or feelings, but there are a few reasons why someone might feel this way, including insecurity, past history, or fear of loss. Jealousy can be triggered by these and might create tensions within your relationships.
A new study carried out at the University of Haifa has found that the hormone oxytocin, the "love hormone," which affects behaviors such as trust, empathy and generosity, also affects opposite behaviors, such as jealousy and gloating.
Learn skills for emotional regulation. Use mindfulness to handle sudden feelings of jealousy. Focus on self-care. Focusing on taking care of oneself and one's own relationships can help people feel more confident and less dependent, decreasing their likelihood to feel jealous.
Brain injury and stroke studies have revealed that jealousy is indeed "in your head”-specifically in the left part of the cerebral cortex. Activation or inhibition of certain regions of the brain can induce jealousy, although measures of decreased jealousy have not been recorded.
The cause usually lies in childhood
Many of the highly jealous people have experienced attachments as insecure in their childhood. Even as adults, they constantly fear being abandoned. This fear is so dominant that it manifests itself in delusions of control and jealousy.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has long been believed to be a disorder that produces the most intense emotional pain and distress in those who have this condition. Studies have shown that borderline patients experience chronic and significant emotional suffering and mental agony.
In obsessional jealousy, jealous thoughts are experienced as intrusive and excessive with compulsive behaviors. Patients recognize that their fears are baseless and are ashamed of them. These thoughts are egodystonic (13).
Obsessive Jealousy is similar to other kinds of OCD in terms of the symptomatology, but an important difference is that the obsessive, intrusive and oftentimes delirious thoughts center around the theme of their partner being unfaithful.