Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T18:33:47.664Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Phenomenological Aspects of Monodelusional Disorders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

Alistair Munro*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Camp Hill Hospital, 1765 Robie Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3G2

Extract

The monodelusional disorders correspond closely to the Kraepelinian description of paranoia (Kraepelin, 1921), and to the DSM—III—R category of “delusional (paranoid) disorder” (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). The essential feature is a stable delusional system, and the encapsulated quality of the delusion is characteristic. The rest of the personality is notably well preserved, but the delusional system, despite its encapsulation, takes over much of the individual's way of life. There are profound and striking secondary changes in affect, attitude and logic when the patient switches from the normal to the delusional mode or vice versa.

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 (1987) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn, revised) (DSM-III-R). Washington, DC: APA.Google Scholar
Jobe, T. (1990) The paranoid psychoses. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 3, 3537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendler, K. S. & Tsuang, M. T. (1981) Nosology of paranoid schizophrenia and other paranoid psychoses. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 7, 594610.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Masterson, C. C. & Davis, K. L. (1985) Psychiatric illness in first-degree relatives of patients with paranoid psychosis, schizophrenia and medical illness. British Journal of Psychiatry, 147, 524531.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kraepelin, E. (1921) Manic Depressive Insanity and Paranoia (transl. Barclay, R. M., ed. Robertson, G. M., 1976). Edinburgh: Livingstone and New York: Arno Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, A. (1970) Paranoia and paranoid: a historical perspective. Psychological Medicine, 1, 212.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Munro, A. (1982) Delusional Hypochondriasis. Toronto: Clarke Institute of Psychiatry Monograph no. 5.Google Scholar
Munro, A. (1988) Monosymptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 153 (suppl. 2 ), 3740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munro, A. & Stewart, M. (1991) Body dysmorphic disorder and DSM IV: the demise of dysmorphophobia. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 36, 9196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reilly, T. M. (1988) Delusional infestation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 153 (suppl. 2 ), 4446.Google Scholar
Watt, J. A. G. (1985) The relationship of paranoid states to schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 14561458.Google Scholar
Winokur, G. (1977) Delusional disorder (paranoia). Comprehensive Psychiatry, 18, 511521.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.