Makindo Medical Notes"One small step for man, one large step for Makindo" |
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Related Subjects: |Psychiatric Emergencies |Depression |Mania |Schizophrenia |Suicide |Acute Psychosis |Delusions |General Anxiety Disorder |Obsessive-Compulsive disorder |Wernicke Korsakoff Syndrome |Medically Unexplained symptoms |Postpartum/Postnatal Depression
Classification | Content |
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Persecutory delusions | False belief that one is being harmed, threatened, cheated, harassed or is a victim of a conspiracy. |
Grandiose delusions | False belief that one is exceptionally powerful (including having ‘mystical powers’), talented or important. |
Delusions of reference | False belief that certain objects, people or events have intense personal significance and refer specifically to oneself (e.g., believing that a television newsreader is talking directly about one). |
Religious delusions | False belief pertaining to a religious theme, often grandiose in nature (e.g., believing that one is a special messenger from God). |
Delusions of love (erotomania) | False belief that another person is in love with one (commoner in women). In one form, termed ‘de Clérambault syndrome’, a woman (usually) believes that a man, frequently older and of higher status, is in love with her. |
Delusion of infidelity (morbid jealousy, Othello syndrome) | False belief that one’s lover has been unfaithful. Note that morbid jealousy may also take the form of an overvalued idea, that is, nonpsychotic jealousy. |
Delusions of misidentification |
Capgras syndrome: belief that a familiar person has been replaced by an exact double – an impostor.
Fregoli syndrome: belief that a complete stranger is actually a familiar person already known to one. |
Nihilistic delusions (see Cotard syndrome, Chapter 11.) | False belief that oneself, others or the world is nonexistent or about to end. In severe cases, negation is carried to the extreme with patients claiming that nothing, including themselves, exists. |
Somatic delusions | False belief concerning one’s body and its functioning (e.g., that one’s bowels are rotting). Also called ‘hypochondriacal delusions’ (to be distinguished from the overvalued ideas seen in hypochondriacal disorder). |
Delusions of infestation (Ekbom syndrome) | False belief that one is infested with small but visible organisms. May also occur secondary to tactile hallucinations (e.g., formication; see Chapter 8). |
Delusions of control (passivity or ‘made’ experiences) |
Note: these are all first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia.
False belief that one’s thoughts, feelings, actions or impulses are controlled or ‘made’ by an external agency (e.g., believing that one was ‘made’ to break a window by demons). Delusions of thought control include: ‘Thought insertion’: belief that thoughts or ideas are being implanted in one’s head by an external agency. ‘Thought withdrawal’: belief that one’s thoughts or ideas are being extracted from one’s head by an external agency. ‘Thought broadcasting’: belief that one’s thoughts are being diffused or broadcast to others such that they know what one is thinking. |