Delusions
Delusions are false personal beliefs that are not subject to reason or contradictory evidence and are not part of the person’s culture. They are common symptoms of schizophrenia and can involve themes of persecution or grandeur, for example. Sometimes delusions in schizophrenia are quite bizarre – for instance, believing that a neighbor is controlling the schizophrenic individual’s behavior with magnetic waves, or that people on television are directing special messages specifically at him or her, or are broadcasting the individual’s thoughts aloud to other people. Delusions of persecution, which are common in paranoid schizophrenia, are false and irrational beliefs that a person is being cheated, harassed, poisoned, watched, followed, or conspired against. The patient may believe that he or she, or a member of the family or other group, is the focus of this imagined persecution. Delusions of grandeur, such as a belief that one is God, must be differentiated from mania.
Delusions may also occur due to Substance Abuse, Delirium or Dementia.
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