[sakurahime]

Fictionkin is supposedly a belief going around the internet where people claim they are currently or have been a fictional character in a past life. Many say it's a spiritual thing, but many also claim that it's quite literal, and try to justify their stubborn belief with the excuse of the "multiverse theory" saying that it may be "fiction" here, but in other worlds it's reality.

It really unsettles me, mostly because a very unstable friend of mine firmly believes that he's fictionkin. That he IS "Gamzee Makara" from Homestuck, as well as one of the Doctors from Doctor Who and many other things/characters. No matter how I look at it, it seems more like a delusion than a possibility.

My question is, if this was brought up in therapy sessions, would the therapist actually go along with it and say it's a "healthy" thing for a mentally and emotionally unstable person to believe, or would they call it out as a delusion and treat them for it? I would think enabling things like that would be illegal.

This is basically taking the concept of parallel universes, the nature of reality and past lives to a whole new level. It takes it to the level of believing fictional characters are real. There's another theory floating around that fictional books, like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter are not fiction at all. It says that the stories actually took place on some other planet. The authors are merely channeling those stories onto paper.

Perhaps this thinking you've described belongs to this theory I've just described. I believe the boundaries of our thinking are beginning to disintegrate, which means some really wild theories are going to come into being. Some theories end up being proven to be true, others end up forever in the trash bin.

I don't think it's helpful to encourage someone to believe they are a character in a TV show. That's only going to lead them to conflict with the actual character on the TV show. At this point, it is pure delusion. It's a way for this particular person to feel important or relevant, when perhaps they don't feel those things. In fact it may even be along the lines of someone believing they are the reincarnation of Jesus.

Therapists are stuck between a rock and hard place with this type of patient, as they need to indulge them a bit OR they risk the person shutting them out.

[Skeezyks]

Hello sakurahime: Since this appears to be your first post... welcome to PsychCentral... from the Skeezyks! May you find the time you spend here to be of benefit.

I don't know about this. Personally I can't imagine that a therapist would go along with something like this & say it is healthy. On the other hand, how a particular therapist would handle such a situation would, I imagine, depend on a number of other variables including: how long s/he has been seeing the person, what the person's diagnosis is, what's going on in the person's life at the moment, as well as other factors. There is as much at to therapy as there is science & different therapists are going to approach things such as this differently.

I am given to think of what I know my own therapist would say. "What is the evidence this is true and what is the evidence it isn't".