Shared psychotic disorders usually happen only in long-term relationships in which the person who has the psychotic disorder is dominant and the other person is passive. These pairs tend to have a close emotional connection to each other. But apart from that, they usually don’t have strong social ties. Shared psychotic disorders can also happen in groups of people who are closely involved with a person who has a psychotic disorder (called folie à plusiers, or "the madness of many"). For instance, this could happen in a cult if the leader is psychotic and his or her followers take on their delusions. Experts don’t know why it happens. But they beli