=Mental Health= 
[[toc]]
In a time when people can discard bodies and replace them with new ones, trauma inflicted on your mind and ego—your sense of self—is often more frightening than grievous physical harm. There are many ways in which your sanity and mental wholeness can be threatened: experiencing physical death, extended isolation, loss of loved ones, alien situations, discontinuity of self from lost memories or switching morphs, psi attack, and so on. Two methods are used to gauge your mental health: stress points and trauma.
==Stress Points== 
Stress points represent fractures in your ego’s integrity, cracks in the mental image of yourself. This mental damage is experienced as cerebral shocks, disorientation, cognitive disconnects, synaptic misfires, or an undermining of the intellectual faculties. On their own, these stress points do not significantly impair your character’s functioning, but if allowed to accumulate they can have severe repercussions. Additionally, any source that inflicts a large amount of stress points at once is likely to have a more severe impact (see Trauma).
Stress points may be reduced by long-term rest, psychiatric care, and/or psychosurgery.
==Lucidity and Stress== 
Your Lucidity stat benchmarks your character’s mental stability. If you build up an amount of stress points equal to or greater than your Lucidity score, your character’s ego immediately suffers a mental breakdown. You effectively go into shock and remain in a catatonic state until your stress points are reduced to a level below your Lucidity stat. Accumulated stress points will overwhelm egos housed inside synthetic shells or infomorphs just as they will biological brains—the mental software effectively seizes up, incapable of functioning until it is debugged.
===Insanity Rating=== 
Extreme amounts of built-up stress points can permanently damage your character’s sanity. If accumulated stress points reach your Lucidity x 2, your character’s ego undergoes a permanent meltdown. Your mind is lost, and no amount of psych help or rest will ever bring it back.
==Stress Value== 
Any source capable of inflicting cognitive stress is given a Stress Value (SV). This indicates the amount of stress points the attack or experience inflicts upon a character. Like DV, SV is often presented as a variable amount, such as 2d10, or sometimes with a modifier, such as 2d10 + 10. Simply roll the dice and total the amounts to determine the stress points inflicted in that instance. To make things easier, a static SV is also given in parentheses after the variable amount; use that set amount when you wish to keep the game moving and don’t want to roll dice.
==Trauma== 
Mental trauma is more severe than stress points. Traumas represent severe mental shocks, a crumbling of personality/self, delirium, paradigm shifts, and other serious cognitive malfunctions. Traumas impair your character’s functioning and may result in temporary derangements or permanent disorders.
If your character receives a number of stress points at once that equals or exceeds their Trauma Threshold, they have suffered a trauma. If the inflicted stress points are double or triple the Trauma Threshold, they suffer 2 or 3 traumas, respectively, and so on. Traumas are cumulative and must be recorded on your character sheet.
===Trauma Effects=== 
Each trauma applies a cumulative –10 modifier to all of the character’s actions (-1 to Initiative tests). A character with 2 traumas, for example, suffers –20 to all actions. These modifiers are also cumulative with wound modifiers.
**Disorientation:** Any time a character suffers a trauma, they must make an immediate WIL x 3 Test. Trauma modifiers apply. If they fail, they are temporarily stunned and disoriented, and must expend a Complex Action to regain their wits.
**Derangements and Disorders:** Any time a character is hit with a trauma, they suffer a temporary derangement (see Derangements). The first trauma inflicts a minor derangement. If a second trauma is applied, the first derangement is either upgraded from minor to a moderate derangement, or else a second minor derangement is applied (gamemaster’s discretion). Likewise, a third trauma may upgrade that derangement from moderate to major or else inflict a new minor. It is generally recommended that derangements be upgraded in potency, especially when result from the same set of ongoing circumstances. In the case of traumas that result from distinctly separate situations and sources, separate derangements may be applied.
**Disorder:** When four or more traumas have been inflicted on a character, a major derangement is upgraded to a disorder. Disorders represent long-lasting psychological afflictions that typically require weeks or even months of psychotherapy and/or psychosurgery to remedy.
==Derangements== 
Derangements are temporary mental conditions that result from traumas. Derangements are measured as Minor, Moderate, or Major. The gamemaster and player should cooperate in choosing which derangement to apply, as appropriate to the scenario and character personality.
Derangements last for 1d10 ÷ 2 hours (round down), or until the character receives psychiatric help, whichever comes first. At the gamemaster’s discretion, a derangement may last longer if the character has not been distanced from the source of the stress, or if they remain embroiled in other stress-inducing situations. Derangement effects are meant to be role-played. The player should incorporate the derangement into their character’s words and actions. If the gamemaster doesn’t feel the player is stressing the effects enough, they can emphasize them. If the gamemaster feels it is appropriate, they may also call for additional modifiers or tests for certain actions.
===Minor Derangements=== 
* **Anxiety :** You suffer a panic attack, exhibiting the physiological conditions of fear and worry: sweatiness, racing heart, trembling, shortness of breath, headaches, and so on.
* **Avoidance :** You are psychologically incapable with dealing with the source of the stress, or some circumstance related to it, so you avoid it—even covering your ears, curling up in a ball, or shutting off your sensors if you have to.
* **Dizziness :** The stress makes you light-headed and disoriented.
* **Echolalia :** You involuntarily repeat words and phrases spoken by others.
* **Fixation :** You become fixated on something that you did wrong or some circumstance that led to your stress. You obsess over it, repeating the behavior, trying to fix it, running scenarios through your head and out loud, and so on.
* **Hunger :** You are suddenly consumed by an irrational yet overwhelming desire to eat something—perhaps even something unusual.
* **Indecisiveness :** You are flustered by the cause of your stress, finding it difficult to make choices or select courses of action.
* **Logorrhea :** Your response to the trauma is to engage in excessive talking and babbling. You don’t shut up.
* **Nausea :** The stress sickens you, forcing you to fight down queasiness.
===Moderate Derangements=== 
* **Chills :** Your body temperature rises, making you feel cold, and shivering sets in. You just can’t get warm.
* **Confusion :** The trauma scrambles your concentration, making you forget what you’re doing, mix up simple tasks, and falter over easy decisions.
* **Echopraxia :** You involuntarily repeat and mimic the actions of others around you.
* **Mood Swings :** You lose control of your emotions. You switch from ecstasy to tears and back to rage without warning.
* **Mute :** The trauma shocks you into speechlessness and a complete inability to effectively communicate.
* **Narcissism:** In the wake of the mental shock, all you can think about is yourself. You cease caring about those around you.
* **Panic :** You are overwhelmed by fear or anxiety and immediately seek to distance yourself from the cause of the stress.
* **Tremors :** You shake violently, making it difficult to hold things or stay still.
===Major Derangements=== 
* **Blackout :** You operate on auto-pilot in a temporary fugue state. Later, you will be incapable of recalling what happened during this period. (Synthetic shells and infomorphs may call up memory records from storage.)
* **Frenzy :** You have a major freak out over the source of the stress and attack it.
* **Hallucinations :** You see, hear, or otherwise sense things that aren’t really there.
* **Hysteria :** You lose control, panicking over the source of the stress. This typically results in an emotional outburst of crying, laughing, or irrational fear.
* **Irrationality :** You are so jarred by the stress that your capacity for logical judgment breaks down. You are angered by imaginary offenses, hold unreasonable expectations, or otherwise accept things with unconvincing evidence.
* **Paralysis :** You are so shocked by the trauma that you are effectively frozen, incapable of making decisions or taking action.
* **Psychosomatic Crippling :** The trauma overwhelms you, impairing some part of your physical functioning. You suffer from an inexplicable blindness, deafness, or phantom pain, or are suddenly incapable of using a limb or other extremity.
==<span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**Disorders**</span>== 
Disorders reflect more permanent madness. In this case, “permanent” does not necessarily mean forever, but the condition is ongoing until the character has received lengthy and effective psychiatric help. Disorders are inflicted whenever a character has accumulated 4 traumas. The gamemaster and player should choose a disorder that fits the situation and character. Disorders are not always “active”—they may remain dormant until triggered by certain conditions.
While it is certainly possible to act under a disorder, it represents a severe impairment to a person’s ability to maintain normal relationships and do a job successfully. Disorders should not be glamorized as cute role-playing quirks. They represent the best attempts of a damaged psyche to deal with a world that has failed it in some way. Additionally, people in many habitats, particularly those in the inner system, still regard disorders as a mark of social stigma and may react negatively towards impaired characters.
Characters that acquire disorders over the course of their adventures may get rid of them in one of two ways, either through in-game attempts to treat them or by buying them off as they would a negative trait.
===**Addiction**=== 
Addiction as a disorder can refer to any sort of addictive behavior focused toward a particular behavior or substance, to the point where the user is unable to function without the addiction but is also severely impaired due to the effects of the addiction. It is marked by a desire on the part of the subject to seek help or reduce the use of the addicting substance/act, but also by the subject spending large amounts of time in pursuit of their addiction to the exclusion of other activities. This is a step up from [[Traits#Addiction|Addiction]] negative trait--this is much more of a crippling behavior that compensates for spending time away from the addiction. Addictions are typically related to the trauma that caused the disorder (VR or drug addictions are encouraged).
**Suggested Game Effects:** The addict functions in only two states: under the influence of their addiction or in withdrawal. Additionally, they spend large amounts of time away from their other responsibilities in pursuit of their addiction.
===**Atavism**=== 
Atavism is a disorder that mainly affects uplifts. It results in them regressing to an earlier un- or partially-uplifted state. They may exhibit behaviors more closely in line with their more animalistic forbears, or they may lose some of their uplift benefits such as the ability for abstract reasoning or speech.
**Suggested Game Effects:** The player and gamemaster should discuss how much of the uplift’s nature is lost and adjust game penalties accordingly. It is important to note that other uplifts view atavistic uplifts with something akin to horror and will usually have nothing to do with them.
===**Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)**=== 
This disorder manifests as a marked inability to focus on any one task for an extended period of time, and also an inability to notice details in most situations. Sufferers may nd themselves starting multiple tasks, beginning a new one after only a cursory attempt at the prior task. ADHD suffers may also have a manic edge that manifests as confidence in their ability to get a given job done, even though they will quickly lose all interest in it.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Perception and related skill penalties. Increased difficulty modifiers to task actions, particularly as the action drags on.
===**Autophagy**=== 
This is a disorder that usually only occurs among uplifted octopi. It is a form of anxiety disorder characterized by self-cannibalism of the limbs. Subjects afflicted with autophagy will, under stress, begin to consume their limbs, if at all possible, causing themselves potentially serious harm.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Anytime an uplifted octopi with this disorder is placed in a stressful situation they must make a successful WIL x 3 Test or begin to consume one of their limbs.
===Bipolar Disorder=== 
Bipolar disorder is also called manic depression. It is similar to depression except for the fact that the periods of depression are interrupted by brief (a matter of days at most) periods of mania where the subject feels inexplicably “up” about everything with heightened energy and a general disregard for consequences. The depressive stages are similar in all ways to depression. The manic stages are dangerous since the subject will take risks, spend wildly, and generally engage in behavior without much in the way of forethought or potential long term consequences.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Similar to depression, but when manic the character must make a WIL x 3 Test to not do some action that may be potentially risky. They will also try to convince others to go along with the idea.
===Body Dysmorphia=== 
Subjects afflicted with this disorder believe that they are so unspeakably hideous that they are unable to interact with others or function normally for fear of ridicule and humiliation at their appearance. They tend to be very secretive and reluctant to seek help because they are afraid others will think them vain—or they may feel too embarrassed to do so. Ironically, BDD is often misunderstood as a vanity-driven obsession, whereas it is quite the opposite; people with BDD believe themselves to be irrevocably ugly or defective. A similar disorder, gender identity disorder, where the patient is upset with their entire sexual biology, often precipitates BDD-like feelings. Gender identity disorder is directed specifically at external sexually dimorphic features, which are in constant conflict with the patient’s internal psychiatric gender.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Because of the nature of Eclipse Phase and the ability to swap out and modify a body, this is a fairly common disorder. It is suggested that characters with this suffer increased or prolonged resleeving penalties since they are unable to fully adjust to the reality of their new morph.
===Borderline Personality Disorder=== 
This disorder is marked by a general inability to fully experience one’s self any longer. Emotional states are variable and often marked by extremes and acting out. Simply put, the subject feels like they are losing their sense of self and seeks constant reassurance from others around them, yet is not fully able to act in an appropriate way. They may also engage in impulsive behaviors in an attempt to experience some sort of feeling. In extreme cases, there may be suicidal thoughts or attempts.
**Suggested Game Effects:** The character needs to be around others and will not be left alone, however they also are not quite able to relate to others in a normal way and may also take risks or make impulsive decisions.
===Depression=== 
Clinical depression is characterized by intense feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. Subjects usually report feeling as though nothing they do matters and no one would care anyway, so they are disinclined to attempt much in the way of anything. The character is depressed and finds it difficult to be motivated to do much of anything. Even simple acts such as eating and bathing can seem to be monumental tasks.
**Suggested Game Effect:** Depressives often lack the will to take any sort of action, often to the point of requiring a WIL x 3 Test to engage in sustained activity.
===Fugue=== 
The character enters into a fugue state where they display little attention to external stimuli. They will still function physiologically but refrain from speaking and stare off into the distance, unable to focus on events around them. Unlike catatonia, a person in a fugue state will walk around if lead about by a helper, but is otherwise unresponsive. The fugue state is usually a persistent state, but it can be an occasional state that is triggered by some sort of external stimuli similar to the original trauma that triggered the disorder.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Characters in a fugue state are totally non-responsive to most stimuli around them. They will not even defend themselves if attacked and will usually attempt to curl into a fetal position if physically assaulted.
===General Anxiety Disorder (GAD)=== 
GAD results in severe feelings of anxiety about nearly everything the character comes into contact with. Even simple tasks represent the potential for failure on a catastrophic scale and should be avoided or minimized. Additionally, negative outcomes for any action are always assumed to be the only possible outcomes.
**Suggested Game Effects:** A character with GAD will be almost entirely useless unless convinced otherwise, and then only for a short period of time. Another character can attempt to use a relevant social skill to coax the GAD character into doing what is required of them. If the character with the disorder fails at the task, however, all future attempts to coax them will suffer a cumulative –10 penalty.
===Hypochondria=== 
Hypochondriacs suffer from a delusion that they are sick in ways that they are not. They will create disorders that they believe they suffer from, usually to get the attention of others. Often hypochondriacs will inflict harm on themselves or even ingest substances that will aid in producing symptoms similar to the disorder they believe they have. These attempts to simulate symptoms can and will cause actual harm to hypochondriacs.
**Possible Game Effects:** A subject that is hypochondriac will often behave as though they are under the effects of some other disorder or physical malady. This can be consistent over time or can be different and ever changing. They will react with hostility to claims that they are faking or not actually ill.
===Impulse Control Disorder=== 
Subjects have a certain act or belief that they must engage in a certain activity that comes into their mind. This can be kleptomania, pyromania, sexual exhibitionism, etc. They feel a sense of building anxiety whenever they are prevented from engaging in this behavior for an extended period (usually several times a day to weekly, depending on the impulse) and will often attempt to engage in this behavior at inconvenient or inappropriate times. This is different from OCD in the sense that OCD is usually a single contained behavior that must be engaged in to reduce anxiety. Impulse control disorder is a variety of behaviors and can be virtually any sort of highly inappropriate action.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Similar to OCD, if the character doesn’t engage in the behavior they will grow increasingly disturbed and suffer penalties to all actions until they are able to engage in the compulsion that alleviates their anxiety.
===Insomnia=== 
Insomniacs find themselves unable to sleep, or unable to sleep for an extended period of time. This is most often due to anxiety about their lives or as a result of depression and the accompanying negative thought patterns. This is not the sort of sleeplessness that is brought about as a result of normal stress but rather a near total inability to find rest in sleep when it is desired. Insomniacs may find themselves nodding off at inopportune times, but never for long, and never enough to gain any restful sleep. As a result, they are frequently lethargic and inattentive as their lack of sleep robs them of their edge and eventually any semblance of alertness. Additionally, insomniacs are frequently irritable due to being on edge and unable to rest.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Due to the lack of meaningful sleep, insomniacs should suffer from blanket penalties to perception related tasks or anything requiring concentration or prolonged fine motor abilities.
===Megalomania=== 
A megalomaniac believes themselves to be the single most important person in the universe. Nothing is more important than the megalomaniac and everything around them must be done according to their whim. Failure to comply with the dictates of a megalomaniac can often result in rages or actual physical assaults by the subject.
**Suggested Game Effects:** A character that has megalomania will demand attention and has difficulty in nearly any social situation. Additionally, they may be provoked to violence if they think they are being slighted.
===Multiple Personality Disorder=== 
This is the development of a separate, distinct personality from the original or control personality. The personalities may or may not be aware of each other and “conscious” during the actions of the other personality. Usually there is some sort of trigger that results in the emergence of the non-control personality. Most subjects have only a single extra personality, but it is not unheard of to have several personalities. It is important to note that these are distinct individual personalities and not just crude caricatures of the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde sort. Each personality sees itself as a distinct person with their own wants, needs, and motivations. Additionally, they are usually unaware of the experiences of the others, though there is some basic information sharing (such as language and core skill sets).
**Suggested Game Effects:** When the player is under the effects of another personality, they should be treated as an NPC. In some rare cases the player and the gamemaster can work out the second personality and allow the player to roleplay this. This does not however constitute an entire new character that can be “turned on” at will.
===Obsessive / Compulsive Disorder (OCD)=== 
Subjects with OCD are marked by intrusive or inappropriate thoughts or impulses that cause acute anxiety if a particular obsession or compulsion is not engaged in to alleviate them. These obsessions and compulsions can be nearly any sort of behavior that must be immediately engaged in to keep the rising anxiety at bay. Players and gamemasters are encouraged to come up with a behavior that is suitable. Examples of common behaviors include repetitive tics (touching every finger of each hand to another part of the body, tapping the right foot twenty times), pathological behaviors such as gambling or eating, or a mental ritual that must be completed (reciting a book passage).
**Suggested Game Effects:** If the character doesn’t engage in the behavior they will grow increasingly disturbed and suffer penalties to all actions until they are able to engage in the compulsion that alleviates their anxiety.
===Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)=== 
PTSD occurs as a result of being exposed to either a single incident or a series of incidents where the sufferer had their own life, or saw the lives of others, threatened with death. These incidents are often marked by an inability on the part of the victim, either real or perceived, to do anything to alter the outcomes. As a result, they develop an acute anxiety and fixation on these incidents to the point where they lose sleep, become irritated or easily angered, or are depressed over feelings that they lack control in their own lives.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Penalties to task actions, also treat situations similar to the initial episodes that caused the disorder as a phobia.
===Schizophrenia=== 
While schizophrenia is generally acknowledged as a genetic disorder that has an onset in early adulthood, it also seems to develop in a number of egos that undergo frequent morph changes. It has been theorized that this is due to some sort of repetitive error in the download process. Regardless, it remains a rare, yet persistent danger of dying and being brought back. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder where the subject loses their ability to discern reality from unreality. This can involve delusions, hallucinations (often in support of the delusions), and fragmented or disorganized speech. The subject will not be aware of these behaviors and will perceive themselves as functioning normally, often to the point of becoming paranoid that others are somehow involved in a grand deception.
**Suggested Game Effects:** Schizophrenia represents a total break from reality. A character that is schizophrenic may see and hear things and act on those delusions and hallucinations while seeing attempts by their friends to stop or explain to them as part of a wider conspiracy. Adding to this is the difficulty of communicating coherently. Characters that have become schizophrenic are only marginally functional and only for short periods of time until they have the disorder treated.
==Stressful Situations== 
The universe of Eclipse Phase is ripe with experiences that might rattle a character’s sanity. Some of these are as mundane and human as extreme violence, extended isolation, or helplessness. Others are less common, but even more terrifying: encountering alien species, infection by the Exsurgent virus, or being sleeved inside a non-human morph.
<span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**Willpower Stress Test**</span>
Whenever a character encounters a situation that might impact their ego’s psyche, the gamemaster may call for a (Willpower x 3) Test. This test determines if the character is able to cope with the unnerving situation or if the experience scars their mental landscape.
If they succeed, the character is shaken but otherwise unaffected. If they fail, they suffer stress damage (and possibly trauma) as appropriate to the situation. A list of stress-inducing scenarios and suggested SVs are listed on the Stressful Experiences table. The gamemaster should use these as a guideline, modifying them as appropriate to the situation at hand. Note that some incidents may be so horrific that a modifier is applied to the character’s (Willpower x 3) Test.
==Hardening== 
The more you are exposed to horrible or terrifying things, the less scary they become. After repeated exposure, you become hardened to such things, able to shake them off without effect.
Every time you succeed in a Willpower Test to avoid taking stress from a particular source, take note. If you successfully resist such a situation 5 times, you become effectively immune to taking stress from that source. The drawback to hardening yourself to such situations is that you grow detached and callous. In order to protect yourself, you have learned to cut off your emotions—but it is such emotions that make you human. You have erected mental walls that will affect your empathy and ability to relate to others. Each time you harden yourself to one source of stress, your maximum Moxie stat is reduced by 1. Psychotherapy may be used to overcome such hardening, in the same way a disorder is treated.
||||~ Stressful Experiences ||
|| **Situation** || **SV** ||
|| Failing spectacularly in pursuit of a motivational goal || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Helplessness || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Betrayal by a trusted friend || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Extended isolation || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Extreme violence (viewing) || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Extreme Violence (committing) || 1d10 ||
|| Awareness that your death is imminent || 1d10 ||
|| Experiencing someone's death via XP || 1d10 ||
|| Losing a loved one || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Watching a loved one die || 1d10 + 2 ||
|| Being responsible for the death of a loved one || 1d10+5 ||
|| Encountering a gruesome murder scene || 1d10 ||
|| Torture (viewing) || 1d10+2 ||
|| Torture (moderate suffering) || 2d10+3 ||
|| Torture (severe suffering) || 3d10+5 ||
|| Encountering Aliens (non-sentient) || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Encountering aliens (sentient) || 1d10 ||
|| Encountering hostile aliens || 1d10 + 3 ||
|| Encountering highly-advanced technology || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Encountering Exsurgent-modified technology || 1d10 / 2 ||
|| Encountering Exsurgent-modified transhumans || 1d10 ||
|| Encountering Exsurgent life forms || 1d10+3 ||
|| Exsurgent virus infection || Varies ||
|| Witnessing psi-epsilon sleights || 1d10+2 ||
==Mental Healing and Psychotherapy== 
Stress is trickier to heal than physical damage. There are no nano-treatments or quick fix options (other than killing yourself and reverting to a non-stressed backup). The options for recuperating are simply natural healing over time, psychotherapy, or psychosurgery.
===Psychotherapy Care=== 
Characters with an appropriate skill—[[Medicine]]: Psychiatry, [[Academics]]: Psychology, or [[Profession]]: Psychotherapy—can assist a character suffering mental stress or trauma with psychotherapy. This treatment is a long-term process, involving methods such as psychoanalysis, counseling, roleplaying, relationship-building, hypnotherapy, behavioral modification, drugs, medical treatments, and even psychosurgery. AIs skilled in psychotherapy are also available.
Psychotherapy is a task action, with a timeframe of 1 hour per point of stress, 8 hours per trauma, and 40 hours per disorder. Note that this only counts the time actually spent in psychotherapy with a skilled professional. After each psychotherapy session, make a test to see if the session was successful. Successful psychosurgery adds a +30 modifier to this test; at the gamemaster’s discretion, other modifiers may apply. Likewise, each disorder the character holds inflicts a –10 modifier. Traumas may not be healed until all stress is eliminated.
When a trauma is healed, the derangement associated with that trauma is eliminated or downgraded. Disorders are treated separately from the trauma that caused them, and may only be treated when all other traumas are removed.
Gamemaster and players are encouraged to roleplay a character’s suffering and relief from traumas and disorders. Each is an experience that makes a profound impact on a character’s personality and psyche. The process of treatment may also change them, so in the end they may be a transformed from the person they once were. Even if treated, the scars are likely to remain for some time to come. According to some opinions, disorders are never truly eradicated, they are just eased into submission ... where they may linger beneath the surface, waiting for some trauma to come along.
===Natural Healing=== 
Characters who eschew psychotherapy can hopefully work out the problems in their head on their own over time. For every month that passes without accruing new stress, the character may make a WIL x 3 Test. If successful, they heal 1d10 points of stress or 1 trauma (all stress must be healed first). Disorders are even more difficult to heal, requiring 3 months without stress or trauma, and even then only being eliminated with a successful WIL Test. As a result, disorders can linger for years until resolved with actual psychotherapy.
=[[#Psychosurgery]]Psychosurgery= 
Given the reach of neuroscience in the time of Eclipse Phase, it is easy to think of the mind as programmable software, as something that can be reverse-engineered, re-coded, upgraded, and patched. To a large degree, this is true. Aided by nanotechnology, genetics, and cognitive science, neuroscientists have demolished numerous barriers to understanding the mind’s structure and functions, and even made great leaps in unveiling the true nature of consciousness. Genetic tweaks, neuro-mods, and neural implants offer an assortment of options for improving the brain’s capabilities. The transhuman mind has become a playground—and a battlefield. Nanovirii unleashed during the Fall infected millions, altering their brains in permanent ways, with occasional outbreaks still occurring a decade later. Cognitive virii roam the mesh, plaguing infomorphs and AIs, reprogramming mind states. An “infectious idea” is now a literal term.
In truth, mind editing is not an easy, safe, and error-proof process—it is difficult, dangerous, and often flawed. Neuroscience may be light years ahead of where it was a century ago, but there are many aspects of the brain and neural functions that continue to confound and elude even the brightest experts and AIs. Technologies like nanoneural mapping, uploading, digital mind emulation, and artificial intelligence are also comparatively in their infancy, being mere decades old. Though transhumanity has a handle on how to make these processes work, it does not always fully understand the underlying mechanisms.
Any neurotech will tell you that mucking around in the mind’s muddy depths is a messy business. Brains are organic devices, molded by millions of years of unplanned evolutionary development. Each is grown haphazardly, loaded with evolutionary leftovers, and randomly modified by an unlimited array of life events and environmental factors. Every mind features numerous mechanisms—cells, connections, receptors—that handle a dizzying array of functions: memory, perception, learning, reasoning, emotion, instinct, consciousness, and more. Its system of organization and storage is holonomic, diffused, and disorganized. Even the genetically-modified and enhanced brains of transhumans are crowded, chaotic, cross-wired places, with each mind storing its memories, personality, and other defining features in unique ways.
What this means is that though the general architecture and topography of neural networks can be scanned and deduced, the devil is in the details. Techniques used to modify, repair, or enhance one person’s mind are not guaranteed equal success when applied to another’s brain. For example, the process by which brains store knowledge, skills, and memories results in a strange chaining process where these memories are linked and associated with other memories, so attempts to alter one memory can have adverse affects on other memories. In the end, minds are slippery and dodgy things, and attempts to reshape them rarely go as planned.
==The Process of Psychosurgery== 
Psychosurgery is the process of selective, surgical alteration of a transhuman mind. It is a separate field from neural genetic modification (which alters genetic code), neuralware implantation (adding cybernetic or biotech inserts to the brain or nervous system), or brain hacking (software attacks on computer brains, neural inserts, and infomorphs), though they are sometimes combined. Psychosurgery is almost always performed on a digital mind-state, whether that be a real-time emulation, a backup, or a fork. In most cases, the subject’s mind-state is copied via the same technology and process as uploading or forking, and run in a simulspace. The subject need not be willing, and in these cases the subject’s permissions are restricted. Numerous psychosurgery simulspace environments are available, each custom-designed for facilitating specific psychosurgical goals and programmed with a thorough selection of psychotherapy treatment options.
The actual process of psychosurgery breaks down into several stages. First is diagnosis, which can involve the use of several neuro-imaging techniques on morphed characters, mapping synaptic connections, and building a neurochemical model. It can also involve complete psychological profiling and psychometric behavioral testing, including personality tests and simulspace scenario simulations. Digital mind-states can be compared to records of people with similar symptoms in order to identify related information clusters. This analysis is used to plan the procedure.
The actual implementation of psychosurgical alteration can involve several methods, depending on the desired results. Applying external modules to the mind-state is often the best approach, as it doesn’t meddle with complicated connections and new inputs are readily interpreted and assimilated. For treatments, mental health software patches compiled from databases of healthy minds are matched, customized, and applied. Specialized programs may be run to stimulate certain mental processes for therapeutic purposes. Before an alteration is even applied, it may first be performed on a fork of the subject and run at accelerated speeds to evaluate the outcome. Likewise, multiple treatment choices may be applied to time-accelerated forks this way, allowing the psychosurgeon to test which is likely to work best.
Not all psychosurgery is performed for the subject’s benefit, of course. Psychosurgery can be used to interrogate or torture prisoners, erase memories, modify behavior, or inflict crippling impairments. It is also sometimes used for legal punishment purposes, in an attempt to impair criminal activity. Needless to say, such methods are often brute-forced rather than fine-tuned, ignoring safety parameters and sometimes resulting in detrimental side effects.
===Solarchive Search: Human Cognome Project=== 
The Human Cognome Project was an academic research venture to reverse engineer the human brain, paralleling in many ways the Human Genome Project and its success in deciphering the human genome. The HCP was a multidisciplinary undertaking, relevant to biology, neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind. Funded and supported by scientific and corporate entrepreneurs and early transhumanist groups, the HCP developed the fundamentals of digitizing an ego and was a major driving force towards the first transhumans with elevated intelligence and brain capacity. The HCP has also been instrumental in cataloging transhuman minds and developing databases of “mind patches” based on the mind-states of healthy individuals for treating mental diseases and damage. Though most HCP data is available to the public, some argonauts claim that certain data is held hostage by some hypercorps, potentially for the development of proprietary mind-altering technologies. After the Fall, the remnants of this project were acquired by the Planetary Consortium.
==Psychosurgery Mechanics== 
In game terms, psychosurgery is handled as a Task Action requiring an Opposed Test. The psychosurgeon rolls Psychosurgery skill against the target’s WIL x 3. Apply modifiers as appropriate from the Psychosurgery Modifiers table. If the psychosurgeon succeeds and the subject fails, the psychosurgery is effective and permanent. The alteration becomes a permanent part of the subject’s ego, and will be copied when uploaded (and sometimes when forking).
If both sides succeed but the psychosurgeon rolls higher, the psychosurgery is effective but temporary. It lasts for 1 week per 10 points of MoS. If the subject rolls higher, or if the psychosurgeon fails their roll, the attempt does not work. The timeframe listed for psychosurgical procedures is according to the patient’s subjective point of view. Since most subjects are treated in a simulspace, time acceleration may drastically reduce the amount of real-time such a procedure requires (see Defying Nature’s Laws).
===Mental Stress=== 
Psychosurgery is a modification to the transhuman mind, and sometimes to the actual person that resides in that mind. It is unsurprising then that psychosurgery places stress on the subject’s mental state and sometimes even inflicts mental traumas. Each psychosurgery option lists a Stress Value (SV) that is inflicted on the subject regardless of the tests’ success or failure. If the psychosurgeon achieves an Excellent Success (MoS 30+), this stress is halved (round down). If the psychosurgeon rolls a Severe Failure (MoF 30+), the stress is doubled.
Alternately, a Severe Failure could result in unintended side effects, such as affecting other behaviors, emotions, or memories.
If a critical success is rolled, no stress is applied at all. If a critical failure is rolled, however, an automatic trauma is applied in addition to the normal stress. Some psychosurgery conditions may also affect the SV, as noted on the Psychosurgery Modifiers table.
==Roleplaying Mind Edits== 
Many of the changes incurred by psychosurgery are nebulous and difficult to pin down with game mechanics. Alterations to a character’s personality and mind-state are often better handled as roleplaying factors anyway. This means that players should make a real effort to integrate any such mental modifications into their character’s words and actions, and gamemasters should ensure that a character’s portrayal plays true to their mind edits. Some psychosurgical mods can be reflected with ego traits, while others might incur modifiers to certain tests or in certain situations. The gamemaster should carefully weigh a brain alteration’s effects, and apply modifiers as they see appropriate.
||||||~ Psychosurgery Modifiers ||
||= **Situation** ||= **Psychosurgery Test Modifiers** ||= **SV Modifier** ||
||= Improper Preparatory Diagnosis ||= -30 ||= +1 ||
||= Safety Protocols Ignored ||= +20 ||= x2 ||
||= Simulspace Time Acceleration ||= -20 ||= +2 ||
||= Subject is an AI, AGI, or Uplift ||= -20 ||= +1 ||
==Psychosurgery Procedures== 
The following alterations may be accomplished with psychosurgery. At the gamemaster’s discretion, other mind-editing procedures may be attempted, using these as a guideline.
===Awareness Block=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 week
**PM:** –30
**SV:** 1d10 ÷ 2, round up
This psychosurgical technique is used to block a subject’s awareness of a speciﬁc subset of their own actions, skills, or memories. This differs from memory editing or skill suppression in that nothing is actually removed from the target’s mind, they are simply prevented from accessing this knowledge. When used to block out behavioral modiﬁcation, the subject is completely unaware of the blocked behavior even while they are doing it. Even if the behavior is pointed out, the subject is incapable of recognizing it or addressing it (attempts to force them to will instigate a Stress Test against 1d10 + 2 SV).
Awareness block is sometimes applied as a second layer of protection to edited memories or suppressed skills. In this case, not only was a memory or skill excised, but the subject is incapable of even reﬂecting upon the possibility. A subject’s inability to even conceive such an idea may be a giveaway to a skilled psychosurgeon; with the proper questions and a Psychosurgery Test at +20, they can ascertain if an awareness block has been installed. Where awareness block really shines, however, is its usefulness for espionage and mind-control programming. Couriers carrying secret information in their heads can be made completely unaware of the trove of data in their minds, reducing the likelihood they will be intercepted or accidentally or intentionally leak what they know. Spies can be programmed with the behavioral control procedure to exercise certain activities, but be blocked by this procedure from ever being aware they are doing them, thus allowing them to lie convincingly and protecting them from interrogation. Unwitting servants or even saboteurs can be created by installing behavioral controls and then blocking any self-awareness of them.
Psychosurgery can be used to detect an awareness block, but it must be actively searched for, takes a timeframe of 1 day (if the block is known) or 2 weeks (if it isn’t), and suffers a –30 modiﬁer. Even if the block is identiﬁed, what it blocks can only be ascertained with a procedure equal to installing the block in the ﬁrst place. Removing an awareness block is an equal procedure to installing one.
===Behavioural Control=== 
**Timeframe**: 1 week
**PM**: Limit/Boost –10; Block/Encourage –20, Expunge/Enforce –30
**SV:** (1d10 ÷ 2, round up)
Commonly used for criminal rehabilitation, behavioral control attempts to limit, block, or expunge a specific behavior from the subject’s psyche. For example, a murderer may be conditioned against acts of aggression, or a kleptomaniac might be restricted from stealing. Some people seek this adjustment willingly, such as socialite glitterati who restrict their desire to eat, or an addict who cuts out their craving for a fix. Behavioral control can also be applied as an unleashing or reinforcement. A companion may desire to eliminate their sexual inhibitions, for example, or a hypercorp exec may boost his commitment to place work above all else.
A character will simply feel compelled to avoid a behavior that is limited (perhaps suffering a –10 modifier), but will find it quite difficult to pursue a behavior that is blocked (requiring a WIL x 3 Test, and suffering a –20 modifier). They will find themselves completely incapable of initiating a behavior that is expunged, and if forced into the behavior will suffer a –30 modifier and (1d10 ÷ 2, round up) points of mental Stress.
Likewise, a character will feel compelled to pursue a behavior that is boosted, and will find it hard to avoid engaging in a behavior that is encouraged (requiring a WIL x 3 Test to avoid). They will have no choice but to engage in enforced behaviors, and will suffer (1d10 ÷ 2, round up) points of mental Stress if prevented from doing so.
===Behavioral Masking=== 
**Timeframe**: 1 week
**PM:** –20
**SV:** 1d10 ÷ 2, round up
Given the ability to switch bodies, many security and law enforcement agencies have resorted to personality and behavioral profiling as a means of identifying people even when they resleeve. Though such systems are far from perfect, someone’s unconscious habits and quirks could potentially give them away.
Characters who wish to elude identification in this way may undergo behavioral masking, which seeks to alter and change the character’s unconscious habits and social cues. Apply a +30 modifier when defending against such identification systems and [[Kinesics]] Tests.
===Deep Learning=== 
**Timeframe:** Skill Learning Time / 2
**PM:** +20
**SV:** 1
Using tutorial programs, memory reinforcement protocols, conditioning tasks, and deep brain stimulation, the subject’s learning ability is reinforced, allowing them to learn new skills more quickly.
===Emotional Control=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 week
**PM:** Limit/Boost –10; Block/Encourage –20, Expunge/Enforce –30
**SV:** (1d10 ÷ 2, round up) + 2
Similar to behavioral control, emotional control seeks to modify, enhance, or restrict the subject’s emotional responses. Some choose these modifications willingly, such as limiting sadness in order to be happier, or encouraging aggression in order to be more competitive. Mercenaries and soldiers have been known to expunge fear. Follow the same rules as given for Behavioral Control.
===Hidden Knowledge=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 week
**PM:** –10
**SV:** 1d10 ÷ 2, round up
This procedure take speciﬁc memories, knowledge, or skills and locks them away in a safe place within the subject’s mind. Like memory editing, the subject is unaware that they had this information. When a certain trigger condition is met, however—a passphrase, a speciﬁc face, a certain event, or something similar—the knowledge instantly becomes available to the subject’s mind once again. It is also possible to program another trigger condition to lock the information away in the subject’s mind once again (unless an awareness block is also put in place, however, they will be aware that they knew something, but won’t be able to recall what).
Psychosurgery can be used to actively search out a cache of hidden knowledge in a subject’s mind, but it takes a timeframe of 1 month and suffers a –30 modiﬁer.
===Interrogation=== 
**Timeframe:** Variable (gamemaster discretion; 1 week default)
**PM:** +30
**SV:** 1d10
Psychosurgery can be used for interrogative purposes via the application of mental torture and manipulation. A successful Psychosurgery Test applies a +30 modifier to the [[Intimidation]] Test for interrogation.
===Memory Editing=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 week (2 weeks adding/replacing)
**PM:** –10 (willing) or –30 (forced)
**SV:** (1d10 ÷ 2, round up)
By monitoring memory recall (forcibly invoked if necessary), psychosurgeons can identify where memories are stored in the brain and target them for removal. Memory storage is complex and diffused, however, and often linked to other memories, so removing one memory may affect others (gamemaster discretion).
Adding or replacing memories is a much more complicated operation and requires that such memories be copied from someone who has experienced them or manufactured with XP software. Even when successfully implanted, fake memories may clash with other (real) memories unless those are also erased.
===Personality Editing=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 week
**PM:** Minor –10; Moderate –20, Major –30
**SV:** (1d10 ÷ 2, round up) + 3
Possibly the most drastic psychosurgery procedure, personality editing involves altering the subject’s core personality traits. The personality factors that may be modified is almost unlimited, including traits such as openness, conscientiousness, altruism, extroversion/introversion, impulsiveness, curiosity, creativity, confidence, sexual orientation, and self-control, among others. These traits may be enhanced or reduced to varying degrees. The effect is largely reflected by roleplaying, but the gamemaster may apply modifiers as they see fit.
===Psychotorture=== 
**Timeframe:** Variable
**PM:** +30
**SV:** 1d10 SV per day
Psychotorture is mental manipulation for the simple intention of causing pain and anguish, reflected in game terms as mental stress and traumas. Prolonged torture can lead to serious mental disorders or worse.
===Psychotherapy=== 
**Timeframe:** Variable
**PM:** +0
**SV:** 0
Therapeutic psychosurgery is beneficial for characters suffering from mental stress, traumas, and disorders. A successful Psychosurgery Test applies a +30 modifier to mental healing tests.
===Skill Imprint=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 week per +10
**PM:** +0
**SV:** 1 per +10
Skill imprinting is the use of psychosurgery to insert skill-set neural patterns in the subject’s brain, temporarily boosting their ability. Skill imprints are artificial boosts, however, degrading at the rate of –10 per day. No skill may be boosted higher than 60.
===Skill Suppression=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 day per –10
**PM:** –10
**SV:** 1 per +10
Skill suppression attempts to identify where skills are stored in the brain and then block or remove them. The subject’s skill is impaired and may be lost entirely.
===Tasping=== 
**Timeframe:** 1 day
**PM:** +10
**SV:** 1
Tasping is the use of deep brain stimulation techniques to tickle the mind’s pleasure centers. Though this procedure is often used for therapeutic purposes for patients suffering from depression or other mental illnesses, the intent with tasping is to overload the subject into a prolonged state of almost unendurable bliss. Such stimulation is highly addictive, however, so character’s exposed to it for any length of time (over 1 hour, subjective) are likely to pick up the Addiction trait. Some criminal organizations have been known to use tasping addiction and rewards as a means of controlling those under their thrall.
===Trait Editing=== 
**Timeframe:**1 week per 10 CP of the trait’s Bonus/Cost
**PM:** – (CP Bonus/Cost of the Ego Trait)
**SV:** (1d10 ÷ 2, round up) + 2
At the gamemaster’s discretion, ego [[traits]] may be added or removed from a character’s personality, much in the same way as behavioral control or personality editing. This procedure should only be allowed for traits that speciﬁcally pertain to a character’s personality and which could conceivably be granted or removed by editing the character’s mind.
For example, the Brave and Trusting Heart traits could be added/removed, but not the Allies or Real World Naiveté traits. At the gamemaster’s discretion, traits not normally allowed for certain character types might be allowed with psychosurgery; for example, an exhuman might want a trait normally only allowed for uplifts.
Traits that are added or removed via psychosurgery must still be paid for with Rez Points (see [[Character Creation and Advancement#Character%20Advancement-Gaining/Losing%20Traits|Gaining/Losing Traits]]). If the character does not have the Rez Points available, they incur a Rez Point debt. Any future Rez Points they earn must immediately be used to pay off this debt.

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