Delusional misidentification syndrome

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Delusional misidentification syndrome
Specialty Psychiatry

Delusional misidentification syndrome is an umbrella term, introduced by Christodoulou (in his book The Delusional Misidentification Syndromes, Karger, Basel, 1986) for a group of four delusional disorders that occur in the context of mental and neurological illness. They are grouped together as they often occur simultaneously or interchange, and they display the common concept of the double (sosie). [1] They all involve a belief that the identity of a person, object, or place has somehow changed or has been altered. Christodoulu further categorized these disorders into those including hypo (or under)-identification of a well-known person (Capgras delusion), and hyper (or over)-identification of an unknown person (the remaining three). [2] As these delusions typically only concern one particular topic, they also fall under the category called monothematic delusions. [3]

Contents

Variants

This psychopathological syndrome is usually considered to include four main variants: [4] [2]

However, similar delusional beliefs, often singularly or more rarely reported, are sometimes also considered to be part of the delusional misidentification syndrome. For example:

There is considerable evidence that disorders such as the Capgras or Fregoli syndromes are associated with disorders of face perception and recognition. However, it has been suggested that all misidentification problems exist on a continuum of anomalies of familiarity, [13] from déjà vu at one end to the formation of delusional beliefs at the other.

See also

References

  1. Christodoulou, George N.; Margariti, Maria; Kontaxakis, Vassilis P.; Christodoulou, Nikos G. (2009). "The delusional misidentification syndromes: strange, fascinating, and instructive". Current Psychiatry Reports. 11 (3): 185–189. doi:10.1007/s11920-009-0029-6. ISSN   1535-1645. PMID   19470279. S2CID   7255596.
  2. 1 2 Bate, Sarah (2017-09-09). Face Recognition and its Disorders. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 71. ISBN   978-1-137-29277-3.
  3. Blom, Jan Dirk (2009-12-08). A Dictionary of Hallucinations. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 332. ISBN   978-1-4419-1223-7.
  4. Ellis HD, Luauté JP, Retterstøl N (1994). "Delusional misidentification syndromes". Psychopathology. 27 (3–5): 117–20. doi:10.1159/000284856. PMID   7846223.
  5. Christodoulou G.N. Delusional Misidentification Syndromes, Karger, Basel, 1986
  6. Christodoulou G.N. The Syndrome of Capgras, Br. J. Psychiatry 130, 556, 1977
  7. Christodoulou G.N. Syndrome of Subjective Doubles, Am. J. Psychiat.135,249,1978
  8. Benson DF, Gardner H, Meadows JC (February 1976). "Reduplicative paramnesia". Neurology. 26 (2): 147–51. doi:10.1212/wnl.26.2.147. PMID   943070. S2CID   41547561.
  9. Berrios G.E.; Luque R. (1995). "Cotard Syndrome: clinical analysis of 100 cases". Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 91 (3): 185–188. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.1995.tb09764.x. PMID   7625193. S2CID   8764432.
  10. Shanks MF, Venneri A (November 2002). "The emergence of delusional companions in Alzheimer's disease: an unusual misidentification syndrome". Cogn Neuropsychiatry. 7 (4): 317–28. doi:10.1080/13546800244000021. PMID   16571545. S2CID   25141272.
  11. Vörös V, Tényi T, Simon M, Trixler M (2003). "'Clonal pluralization of the self': a new form of delusional misidentification syndrome" . Psychopathology. 36 (1): 46–8. doi:10.1159/000069656. PMID   12679592. S2CID   29275304.
  12. Guessoum, Sélim Benjamin; Benoit, Laelia; Minassian, Sevan; Mallet, Jasmina; Moro, Marie Rose (2021). "Clinical Lycanthropy, Neurobiology, Culture: A Systematic Review". Frontiers in Psychiatry. 12: 718101. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.718101 . ISSN   1664-0640. PMC   8542696 . PMID   34707519.
  13. Sno HN (1994). "A continuum of misidentification symptoms". Psychopathology. 27 (3–5): 144–7. doi:10.1159/000284861. PMID   7846229.