I believe that Craig is not suffering from schizophrenia. His actions are not the result of chemical inbalance, but a reflection of his personality - he is enormously self-obsessed, which coupled with his disregard for others, and propensity to lie and deceive in order to attain his goals, makes him a sort of industrial psychopath. Except that he is not the latter, because he demonstrates clear emotion and is primitive in his ability to manipulate. He has a poor understanding of social rules, hence why he continually makes transparent comments that we as viewers read accurately and as a result feel embarrassed and / or angered.

His comments always seem constructed and linked to some covert desire. His crying on the highlights show was simply a desperate attempt to resolve a conflict situation with Anthony, which was born out of his own jealousy and desire to gather group support (including that of his main objective - Anthony) to help prevent the realisation of the illusory threat of Eugene. His criticisms and assessment of Eugene was cleary contrived and inaccurate, which Anthony highlighted - "you can never back up your points".

His tears were perhaps genuine in that they stemmed from jealousy of Eugene, rejection from Anthony and the clear loss of his original objective - to generate support against his threat. Combined with this was the learnt and conditioned stimulus of exaggerated desperation and tears in order to receive compassion from Anthony. This worked, which unfortunately will reinforce the cognitive link he has between stimulus and response, thus perpetuating Craig's propensity to break down.

Anthony should not have backed down (though one cannot blame him for doing so), as this would have been more productive for Craig and those that encounter him.

Craig is not schizophrenic, but has a flawed personality compared to what we consider normal. Perhaps some would consider it a personality disorder. In primitive terms, Craig is simply an immature, socially inept, extremely jealous, insecure egocentric who lacks empathy for others, is almost blind to the transparency of his own words, the ability of others to read them and the meaning produced by other people's actions and words (hence ‘socially inept’). He does demonstrate some scope to understand social signals, but is suffocated by his own obsessions and desires. His breakdowns are a complex mixture of cognitive deficits and learned behaviours that do not match that of the stable normative human being, hence he is prone to throwing tantrums.

In summary, he is not mad, just a prat who is handicapped by his own extreme selfishness ('prat' being used here to sum up the many features of human personality that hinder effective interaction and repel others).

Now can we have an analysis of the texters of those txt messages scrolling across the live feed on C4 ??

One just read "Craig is fit"

Hmm, perhaps reflects dillusions, but NOT to the extent that Craig does.

An excellent summary of the ****

I may have missed something but who are you? A psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist?? or just someone with a non professional opinion? just to clarify.

A very accurate description. In other words a "bighead"

I stress I am not diagnosing him...but all I have to say is that if anyone has ever gone out with someone who suffers from Borderline personality disorder...they'll recognise it immediately in Craig.

Craig is simply generating conflict to maintain his exposure and encourage Anthony to destroy himself in the process.

All one big performance, like with everyone else, with a possible exception of Eugene.:yawn:

Nah this was just my opinion as a viewer and fellow human, though I do work with offenders.

You'd recognise it with every one of these dysfunctional no-marks.

, nice shorthand

Craig is passive aggressive. He actually subtely breaks people down and destorys their confidence in a very underhand way.

His comments tonight at Anthony are an example of this. Take for example Craig telling Anthony he isnt funny anymore. On the surface this can seem like an innocent comment between friends but in actual fact its actually rather oppressive. Anthony made no secret of the fact he currently feels down. Is that then the action of a 'friend' to tell someone they have more or less become boring?

Craig really isnt a very nice person. I love how Anthony no longer colludes with his backbiting at other housemates.

I agree with the initial post that he is totally self obsessed but I also think he lacks any form of empathy as a result.

Yep I totally agree, I said in my inital post that he clearly has a poor ability to emphathaise, which interestingly would be more of a social problem if he had violent tendancies. In terms of his oppression of Anthony, I think he siezes on these chances to make himself more powerful and attempt to remedy the damage he has done to his own character - I think he is well aware of how ridiculous he has been and attempts to be all knowing
with regard Anthony's faults in order to detract from his own and at the same time gain control over the object of his obsession.

I think the situation is made even worse by Anthony's inability to express himself. He seems to have to repeat every opening sentence and of course Craig will just interrupt everytime and Anthony usually gives up.

Interesting..


source http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.html

Yeah, if Anthony was just a little more forceful with his points and persevered with his criticisms regardless of Craig's breakdowns, then Craig would perhaps learn something. Anthony has got a lot better, he has had to(!) - last night he was direct in objecting to Craig's advances, stating that he he wanted him to stop feeling him up and that he does not see at as a joke, but a real dsire of Craigs. Shame they cut that from the highlights.

But he was able to empathise when Orlaith was upset

and did you notice the way after he'd said Anthony could be a character in "Dumb and Dumber" he kept repeating that Anthony was "simple" ,knowing that being calle dsimple upset would upset him and then when Anthony admitted it had upset him,Craig said "OMG it was a joke" and Anthony said "I know and I'm wrong for taking offence,my head is f*cked" .But it was obvious Craig WAS saying it to hurt him

Yes, but he he knows what the accepted responses are and he knows how to comfort someone, just because he says it doesn't mean he means it.

The most tellng part to those comments where when he looked at Anthony in astonishment and declared as if in genuine concern that Anthony was 'losing it'. Classic psychological control, reversing the problem and making Anthony question himself.

It can be very tempting to over-analyse these things. I'm more inclined to suggest that it's a game - and he's playing it.

But Big Brother is the game not Anthony

In terms of games, Craig no doubt does have a perception of what is required to win, hence his terribly transparent attempt at simulating the Nadia effect. Regardless of these, it does not change his flawed personality.

But we all have our props. He's progressively worked his way around the house at various times, wherever he's seen his bread as being best buttered. Mastermind is now his prop - before that it was Chavskia. He's just a sycophant and drama queen, who calculates that if he creates enough drama, he can maintain exposure and destroy rivals in the process. He may well be calculating that a 'gay love interest' is the way to go, securing the pink vote, and some straight women who may believe his b*llshit about the demons he's had to slay etc.

Gawd, everyone's got a flawed personality, including me and you - it's called being human.