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Profs & Pints: Bizarre Psychological Disorders, Part II

Profs and Pints presents: Bizarre Psychological Disorders, Part IIFrom FoMO to frotteurism, with Brian A. Sharpless, visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths of the University of London and editor of Unusual and Rare Psychological Disorders: A Handbook for Clinical Practice and Research.

People are nothing if not confusingly complex, and you won't want to miss watching Brian Sharpless return to the Profs and Pints stage to discuss recent research on five lesser-known disorders that can devastate our social and personal lives. For instance, are you afflicted with what younger generations have labelled FoMO, for fear of missing out? People joke about our distress over not having all of the fun that our friends are having. With social media the anxiety and depression caused by such fear can rise to clinically meaningful levels and research being done on it may pave the way for it to someday be recognized as a psychological disorder

However, some of the strangest psychological symptoms that Dr. Sharpless will talk about are less well-known. For instance, do you have a strong need to amputate a healthy limb? If so, you might be suffering from body identity integrity disorder. Do you constantly feel sexually turned on even when you dont want to be? You might be suffering from persistent genital arousal disorder. Maybe you are obsessively worried that you smell offensive to others. This is a symptom of taijin kyofusho, a disorder that some scholars believe to primarily occur in Asia. And, finally, if youve ever had a stranger continually rub up against you while riding the metro or a bus, you may have just encountered someone with frotteurism.

Along with summarizing the scientific literature on such disorders, he will also place them in broader historical, cultural, and legal contexts. It is his hope that people will leave this talk with a better understanding of the full range of mental-health conditions and, perhaps, a sense of their own good fortune that their behavior has never befuddled psychologists and psychiatrists.