Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:45:07.968Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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 

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

American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM-III). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Brennan, J. M. & Hemsley, D. R. (1984) Illusory correlations in paranoid and non paranoid schizophrenia. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 23, 225226.Google Scholar
Chadwick, P. & Lowe, C. (1990) The measurement and modification of delusional beliefs. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 58, 225232.Google Scholar
Chapman, L. J. & Chapman, J. P. (1988) The genesis of delusions. In Delusional Beliefs (eds Oltmanns, T. F. & A Maher, B.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cutting, J. (1985) The Psychology of Schizophrenia. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.Google Scholar
Cutting, J. (1991) Delusional misidentification and the role of the right hemisphere in the appreciation of identity. British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (suppl. 14 ) 7075.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, T. (1981) On the psychopathology of persecutory delusions. British Journal of Psychiatry, 139, 529532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freeman, T. (1990) Psychoanalytic aspects of morbid jealousy in women. British Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 6872.Google Scholar
Garety, P. A. (1985) Delusions: Problems in definitions and measurement. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 58, 2534.Google Scholar
Garety, P. A. (1990) Reasoning, Rationality and Delusion. Studies in the concepts, characteristics and rationality of delusions. PhD manuscript, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London.Google Scholar
Garety, P. A., Hemsley, D. R. & Wessely, S. (1991) Reasoning in deluded schizophrenic and paranoid subjects: biases in performance on a probabilistic inference task. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 179, 194201.Google Scholar
Grossman, A. (1989) Single case longitudinal studies investigating the relationship between delusional beliefs and mood states. MSc thesis, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London.Google Scholar
Hemsley, D. R. (1990) What have cognitive deficits to do with schizophrenia? In Weissenauer Schizophrenia Symposium, No. 8 (ed. Hüber, G.). Stuttgart, New York: Schattauer Verlag.Google Scholar
Huq, S. F., Garety, P. A. & Hemsley, D. R. (1988) Probabilistic judgements in deluded and non-deluded subjects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40A, 801812.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. & Tversky, A. (eds) (1982) Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaney, S. & Bentall, R. (1989) Persecutory delusions and attributional style. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 62, 191198.Google Scholar
Maher, B. A. (1974) Delusional thinking and perceptual disorder. Journal of Individual Psychology, 30, 98113.Google Scholar
Maher, B. A. (1988) Anomalous experiences and delusional thinking: The logic of explanations. In Delusional Beliefs (eds Oltmanns, T. F. & Maher, B. A.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
McKenna, P. J. (1991) Memory, knowledge and delusions. British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (suppl. 14 ), 3641.Google Scholar
Neale, J. M. (1988) Defensive functions of manic episodes. In Delusional Beliefs (eds Oltmanns, T. F. & Maher, B. A.). New York: John Wiley & Son.Google Scholar
Nelki, J. (1988) Making sense of a delusion of smell: a psychotherapeutic approach. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 61, 267275.Google Scholar
Roberts, G. (1991) Delusional belief systems and meaning in life: a preferred reality. British Journal of Psychiatry, 159 (suppl. 14 ), 1928.Google Scholar
Slade, P. D. & Bentall, R. P. (1988) Sensory Deception: A Scientific Analysis. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Von Domarus, E. (1944) The specific locus of logic in schizophrenia. In Language and Thought in Schizophrenia (ed. Kasanin, J. K.). Berkeley, California: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Winters, K. C. & Neale, J. M. (1983) Delusions and delusional thinking in psychotics: a review of the literature. Clinical Psychology Review, 7, 227253.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.