Disorder in Content of Thought: Delusions

Disorder in Content of Thought

• Delusions: False fixed beliefs that cannot be accepted by people of the same social standard as the patient, not consistent with the patient's educational and cultural background, and cannot be corrected by logic or reasoning.
• Types of Delusions:
  • Paranoid delusions:
    • Delusion of grandeur: False belief of being a very powerful and important person.
    • Delusion of persecution: False belief of being harassed or persecuted by another.
    • Delusion of reference: False belief that the behavior of others refers to oneself.
  • Depressive delusions:
    • Nihilistic delusion: False feeling that self, a part of the body, others, or the world is nonexistent or ending.
    • Delusion of self-blame: False fixed belief that person is full of sins and unfit to live (worthless).
  • Hypochondriacal delusion: False fixed belief that a person has a physical disease that is not based on a real organic pathology.
  • Somatic delusion: False belief about body functions, e.g., one's brain is rotting or melting, or bugs crawl under my skin and eat my brain.

Disorder in Form of Thought

• Obsession: Pathological persistent and recurrent idea, thought, or impulse that cannot be eliminated from consciousness by logical effort or reason.
• Preoccupation: Centering of thought content on particular ideas, associated with strong affective tone, but without the same level of anxiety as obsession.
• Suicidal ideation: Recurrent idea affecting the individual to put an end by themselves to their own life.
• Autistic thinking: Thinking that is largely egocentric with emphasis on subjectivity rather than objectivity, without regard for reality.
• Concrete and autistic thinking are normal forms of thought during the early stages of personality development.

Specific Disturbance in Form of Thought

• Tangentiality: The patient never gets to the desired point and goes off the core of the topic, introducing many unrelated topics.
• Circumstantiality: The patient gives countless and unnecessary details before communicating the central idea, but eventually gets to the desired point.