Martha Mitchell effect. Found this while researching. Very interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Mitchell_effect

If UFOs are really real, then I will bet there are an awful lot of people in mental asylums who were put there because no one believed them.

Think this is a very interesting case with Martha Mitchell. Turns out her paranoia was based on very really fears.

Read the book A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar with great interest because it told the story of John Forbes Nash and his mental illness. Did not like the movie of the same name because I cannot see any actual mentally ill patient believing he is really in a car about to go into a lake while being chased by secret agents. Hearing voices and seeing messages about alien conspiracies in the New York Times is one thing; getting in an imaginary chase is quite another. As well as I suppose, actually seeing a imaginary person who has extensive conversations with you.

The actors in A Beautiful Mind were great as were the other aspects of the movie. The story just seemed really phony when compared with the biography of John Forbes Nash.

There was a female advanced library student while I was at Denver U., in 1983-1984 who demanded a seat for her imaginary friend in various librarianship classes but she did not seem to actually see an entire person sitting next to her. She used to talk to this imaginary person a bit but I never got the impression that her Harvey could actually do stuff with her.