Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:48:57.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Memory, Knowledge and Delusions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

P. J. McKenna
P. J. McKenna*
Affiliation:
Fulbourn Hospital, Fulbourn, Cambridge CB1 5EF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In schizophrenia, where they find their fullest expression, delusions are an extraordinary phenomenon. They can take a bewildering variety of forms, persecutory, grandiose, hypochondriacal, referential, and so on. They can be fixed and immutable, or alternatively may shift and change to the point of what Bleuler termed a delusional chaos. Finally, their degree of implausibility starts from the inherently unlikely, ranges through the patently absurd and bizarre, and not infrequently comes to violate common sense at its most elementary in fantastic delusions.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 159 , Issue S14: Delusions and Awareness of Reality , November 1991 , pp. 36 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arthur, A. Z. (1964) Theories and explanations of delusions: a review. American Journal of Psychiatry, 121, 105–115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, A. D. (1990) Human Memory: Theory and Practice. Hove: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D., Harris, J., Sunderland, A., et al (1987) Closed head injury and memory. In Neurobehavioral Recovery from Head Injury (eds Levin, H. S., Grafman, J. & Eisenberg, H. M.). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D. & Wilson, B. (1988) Frontal amnesia and the dysexecutive syndrome. Brain and Cognition, 7, 212–230.Google Scholar
Berrios, G. E. (1991) Delusions as ‘wrong beliefs': a conceptual history. British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (suppl. 14 ), 7–14.Google Scholar
Bleuler, E. (1911) Dementia Praecox, or the Group of Schizophrenias (transl. 1950 by Zinkin, J.). New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Collins, A. M. & Quillian, M. R. (1969) Retrieval time from semantic memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 8, 240–247.Google Scholar
Cutting, J. & Murphy, D. (1988) Schizophrenic thought disorder: a psychological and organic interpretation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 152, 310–319.Google Scholar
Frith, C. D. & Frith, U. (1992) Elective affinities in schizophrenia and childhood autism. In Social Psychiatry: Theory, Methodology and Practice (ed. Bebbington, P.). New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transactions.Google Scholar
Gray, J. A. (1982) The Neuropsychology of Anxiety: An Enquiry into the Function of the Septo-Hippocampal System. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gray, J. A., Rawlins, J. N. P., Hemsley, D. R., et al (1991) The neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14. 1–84.Google Scholar
Hemsley, D. R. (1987) An experimental psychological model for schizophrenia. In Search for the Causes of Schizophrenia (eds Hafner, H.,Gattaz, W. F. & Janzarik, W.). Heidelberg: Springer Verlag.Google Scholar
Jaspers, K. (1959) Translated (1963) as General Psychopathology by Hoenig, J. & Hamilton., M. W. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Koh, S. D. (1978) Remembering of verbal materials by schizophrenic young adults. In Language and Cognition in Schizophrenia (ed. Schwartz, S.). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Maher, B. A. (1974) Delusional thinking and perceptual disorder. Journal of Individual Psychology, 30, 98–113.Google Scholar
McKenna, P.J. (1987) Pathology, phenomenology and the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 288–301.Google Scholar
Schneider, K. (1949) Translated (1974) as The concept of delusion. In Themes and Variations in European Psychiatry (eds Hirsch, S. R. & Shepherd, M.). Bristol: John Wright.Google Scholar
Squire, L. R. (1987) Memory and Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Swanson, L. W. (1978) The anatomical organization of septo-hippocampal projections. In Functions of the Septo-Hippocampal System, CIBA Foundation Symposium 58 (eds Elliott, K. & Whelan, J.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Tamlyn, D., McKenna, P. J., Mortimer, A. M., et al (1992) Memory impairment in schizophrenia: its extent, affiliations and neuropsychological character. Psychological Medicine (in press).Google Scholar
Tulving, E. (1983) Elements of Episodic Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, C. (1991) Delusion: what did Jaspers really say? British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (suppl. 14 ), 7–14.Google Scholar
Winters, K. C. & Neale, J. M. (1983) Delusions and delusional thinking in psychotics: a review of the literature. Clinical Psychology Review, 3, 227–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.