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Schizophrenic patients describe the voices as providing a running commentary of their behaviors and intentions in their heads, or as commanding presences telling them to do or not do certain things. Frequently, the voices are highly negative and critical in tone and attempt to humiliate patients. Unlike hallucinations, which are sensory in nature, delusions are false fixed beliefs that misinterpret events and relationships. They may originate based on hallucinations, or from faulty suppositions and interpretations of events that either happened or were believed to have happened but which have no basis in reality.

Delusions vary widely in their themes; they may be persecutory, referential about oneself , somatic involving the body , religious, erotomanic involving sexuality , or grandiose in nature.


  • Grandiose delusions - Wikipedia?
  • Positive Symptoms: The Psychotic Dimension.
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  • Grandiose delusions;
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  • Darwin's Angel: An angelic riposte to The God Delusion.

Many times, delusions will involve more than one of these categories at once. For instance, patients who think they are Jesus Christ, are expressing a delusion that is simultaneously religious, grandiose and persecutory, for example. This sort of mixing is normal, although there is usually one theme that is dominant above the others.

The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

For example, the religious element of believing you are Christ may be more prominent than grandiose or persecutory elements. Hallucinations and delusions generally can be described as being either plausible or bizarre. Plausible delusions are those that might possibly be consistent with reality if reality were slightly different than it actually is, while bizarre delusions are completely inconsistent with reality and highly unlikely to ever actually occur.


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  4. For example, it is plausible for someone to think that their lover has cheated on them with another person. It is implausible and bizarre for them to think that their lover has cheated on them with the entire crew of an alien space craft. It would also be bizarre for someone to complain about their intestines spilling out of their body when simple observation by an objective third party shows that this is not the case.

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    Frequently, the combination of hallucinations and delusions go hand in hand. This is to say, delusion of persecution may be supported by 'evidence' derived from hallucinated voices, or a belief that one is the archangel Gabriel may be supported by evidence from "God's" voice. Rather than some dawning of reality, Rokeach observed that each of the men retained their delusional identities while at the same time rationalising the existence of the other two.

    Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia: The Psychotic Dimension

    One of the men, for example, thought one was a liar and the other an angel rather than Jesus himself. More recently, Startup studied a group of psychiatric patients experiencing delusions and hallucinations. The patients read individual case stories about people experiencing a range of pathological states of mind. They were asked how likely it was that the scenarios depicted a mental illness. The patients who were most fixed in their own delusional beliefs were able to distinguish between descriptions of delusional and normal beliefs.

    However, they could not identify anything erroneous or pathological in their own thought processes. It would seem therefore that the capacity to identify hallucinations and delusions in other people might be greater than the ability to see them in oneself. The appraisal by people with psychotic disorders that their delusional beliefs and hallucinatory experiences are non-pathological may have consequences in terms of how likely they are to ask for or receive help.

    Put simply, if you do not believe there is anything wrong with your mental state why should you want to receive medication or a spell in hospital? Refusal to accept treatment is a cause for concern in the care and management of psychotic disorders where delusions and hallucinations are prominent. However, it seems that self-recognition of symptoms is only one of several factors affecting how or if someone engages with recommended treatment. Following a series of interviews with patients with psychosis, it was found that the pathway between the appraisal of delusions and hallucinations and the acceptance of any need for treatment is one of great complexity.

    Kevin Morgan and Anthony David identified five treatment profile types. One of the treatment profile groups consisted of patients that acknowledged a need for treatment but yet were non-compliant. For example the patient who said: Signs and Symptoms in Psychiatry. An Experimental Investigation of the Delusion as Defense". Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. The British Journal of Psychiatry.

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    Retrieved 24 July Psychiatric Aspectes of Neurological Disease. The American Journal of Psychiatry. Comparison across types and diagnoses". Facts on File, Inc.


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      Positive Symptoms Of Schizophrenia: The Psychotic Dimension

      Journal of Affective Disorders. World Cultural Psychiatry Review: Links between depression, self-esteem, negative schematic beliefs and delusions and hallucinations". The Journal of Mental Science. Retrieved from " https: Delusional disorders Schizophrenia Delusions. Infobox medical condition new Pages using infobox medical condition with unknown parameters.