What I've Been Saying!
Clinical therianthropy involves the delusional belief that one transforms into an animal and assumes its characteristics. We conducted a sys
I know there was discourse a while back about p-shifters and "why don't they call themselves delusional" and "is the idea of p-shifting itself harmful" and the like. A new paper came out by Dr. Jan Dirk Blom (a clinical lycanthropy expert, he's talked about otherkin before) about clinical therianthropy and a comparison to non-clinical therianthropic and otherkin groups. What he's saying seems fairly relevant to the current discourse:
"Misdiagnosis of clinical therianthropy can also be made in terms of overpathologizing certain individuals who report strong identification with animals. In order to avoid this possibility, certain terms and group memberships will be discussed. However, in reviewing the professional and online literatures, there seems to be an unavoidable degree of fuzziness or overlap in current definitions (Plante et al., 2016) and, at least at present, a definitive definitional guide seems lacking."
"Another relevant group, already alluded to, is called therians. Therians overlap with furries to a degree, but the identification of these people with animals (or rather as animals) seems to be far stronger. This could range from a strong perceived connection to their fursona to a firmly held conviction that they are less than 100 % human or would even prefer not to be human (Grivell, 2014). Reviewing the literature, people may identify themselves as therians on psychological, behavioral, spiritual, metaphorical, or existential grounds (Scribner, 2012)."
"We would argue that misdiagnoses can be avoided by focusing on i) the nature of the animal identification, ii) the presence or absence of a belief in actual transformation, iii) one’s overall level of reality-testing, and iv) the presence of clinically significant distress and impairment."
"The notion of zoomorphism has such a long and impressive track record in the history of humankind that it is probably safe to say that it has always been around. It has been part and parcel of many cultures, and individuals may have felt attracted to the belief that human-to-animal transformations are possible under the influence of psychological, social, religious, philosophical, chemical, and cultural influences."
"That the number of published cases of clinical therianthropy is so modest is probably due to underdiagnosis, but it may also indicate that zoomorphism in its numerous different forms is a harmless trait that only leads to excesses in relatively rare cases where people feel misunderstood, become socially isolated, and start showing grossly erratic behavior."
"First, and consistent with prior reports, clinical therianthropy rarely occurs on its own, but far more frequently in the context of other serious psychiatric or somatic conditions and occasionally intoxications. It may therefore be a useful additional diagnosis or diagnostic qualifier with no assumption of it becoming a ‘standalone’ diagnosis. Second, we advise against applying this additional diagnosis or qualifier to nonclinical cases (i.e., to situations where people fulfill one or more criteria of zoomorphism in the absence of clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning). We thus hope to prevent a spurious epidemic of nonclinical or ‘minor’ cases of therianthropy, as well as to protect people who enjoy their perceived non-human animal characteristics - or perhaps simply tolerate them - from seeing their ideas and sensations being pathologized."
(bolding mine)
He also went into some interesting questions regarding clinical therianthropy (like if a person claims to turn into a mythical creature, are they still a clinical therianthrope? Probably not) as well as the -anthrope names for some common and uncommon animal transformations.
