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Reasoning and Delusions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

Philippa Garety*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF

Extract

Delusions are among the most common psychiatric symptoms, but the psychological processes involved in their formation and maintenance remain a matter of controversy. This paper briefly reviews competing theories, particularly those involving abnormalities of perception and reason. An investigation of reasoning in deluded schizophrenic and paranoid subjects is presented, followed by a tentative model of belief formation in which abnormalities or biases in reasoning and perception, implicated in the formation of some delusions, are highlighted.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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