Mainstream psychology and related disciplines have traditionally treated belief as if it were the simplest form of mental representation and therefore one of the building blocks of conscious thought. Philosophers have tended to be more rigorous in their analysis and much of the work examining the viability of the belief concept stems from philosophical analysis. The concept of belief presumes a subject (the believer) and an object of belief (the proposition) so like other propositional attitudes, belief implies the existence of mental ...

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Belief, Belief - Belief knowledge and epistemology, Belief - Belief as a psychological theory, Belief - Is belief voluntary?, Belief - Delusional beliefs

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Belief, Belief - Belief knowledge and epistemology, Belief - Belief as a psychological theory, Belief - Is belief voluntary?, Belief - Delusional beliefs

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Knowledge is often defined as justified true belief, in that the belief must be considered to correspond to reality and must be derived from valid evidence and arguments. However, this definition has been challenged by the Gettier problem which suggests that justified true belief does not provide a complete picture of knowledge. Belief can be understood as a state of mind in the process of increasing understanding that sometimes called deduction. As people develop structures of understandings from their observed or learned fact ...

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Belief, Belief - Belief, knowledge and epistemology, Belief - Belief as a psychological theory, Belief - Is belief voluntary?, Belief - Delusional beliefs

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Belief in the psychological sense, is a representational mental state that takes the form of a propositional attitude. In the religious sense, "belief" refers to a part of a wider spiritual or moral foundation, generally called faith; historically generated by a group's need to provide a functionally valid foundation to sustain them. The generally accepted faiths usually note that when oppressive states are generated by it being exercised, and not a fact of reality, it was ...

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Belief - Belief knowledge and epistemology Belief - Belief as a psychological theory Belief - Is belief voluntary? Belief - Delusional beliefs

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Mainstream psychology and related disciplines have traditionally treated belief as if it were the simplest form of mental representation and therefore one of the building blocks of conscious thought. Philosophers have tended to be more rigorous in their analysis and much of the work examining the viability of the belief concept stems from philosophical analysis. The concept of belief presumes a subject (the believer) and an object of belief (the proposition) so like other propositional attitudes, belief implies the existence of mental ...

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Belief, Belief - Belief, knowledge and epistemology, Belief - Belief as a psychological theory, Belief - Is belief voluntary?, Belief - Delusional beliefs

Read more here: » Belief: Encyclopedia II - Belief - Belief as a psychological theory

Belief in the psychological sense, is a representational mental state that takes the form of a propositional attitude. In the religious sense, "belief" refers to a part of a wider spiritual or moral foundation, generally called faith; historically generated by a group's need to provide a functionally valid foundation to sustain them. The generally accepted faiths usually note that when oppressive states are generated by it being exercised, and not a fact of reality, it was ...

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Belief - Belief, knowledge and epistemology Belief - Belief as a psychological theory Belief - Is belief voluntary? Belief - Delusional beliefs

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A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. In psychiatry, the definition is necessarily more precise and implies that the belief is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process). Delusions typically occur in the context of neurological or mental illness, although they are not tied to any particular disease and have been found to occur in the context of many pathological states (both physical a ...

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Delusion - Psychiatric definition Delusion - Primary and Secondary Delusions Delusion - Diagnostic issues

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However, the modern definition and Jaspers's original criteria have been criticised, as counter-examples can be shown for every defining feature. Studies on psychiatric patients have shown that delusions can be seen to vary in intensity and conviction over time which suggests that certainty and incorrigibility are not necessary components of a delusional belief ^{See also:}

Delusion, Delusion - Psychiatric definition, Delusion - Primary and Secondary Delusions, Delusion - Diagnostic issues

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The Capgras delusion or Capgras' syndrome is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that an acquaintance, usually a close family member or spouse, has been replaced by an identical looking imposter. Capgras delusion is classed as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places or objects. Additionally Capgras delusion is termed a monothematic delusion because it has been sh ...

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Capgras delusion - Overview Capgras delusion - Causes Capgras delusion - In fiction

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Although non-specific concepts of madness have been around for several thousand years, the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers was the first to define the three main criteria for a belief to be considered delusional in his book General Psychopathology. These criteria are: certainty (held with absolute conviction) incorrigibility (not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof to the contrary) impossibility or falsity of conte ...

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Delusion, Delusion - Psychiatric definition, Delusion - Primary and Secondary Delusions, Delusion - Diagnostic issues

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Jaspers originally made a distinction between primary and secondary delusions. According to Jaspers, primary delusions (sometimes called true delusions) are distinguished by a transformation of meaning, so that the world, or aspects of it, are interpreted in a radically different way by the delusional person. To others, this interpretation is 'un-understandable' in terms of the normal mental causality, mood, environmental influences and other psychological or psychopathological factors. Jaspers describes four types of primary delusion ...

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Delusion, Delusion - Psychiatric definition, Delusion - Primary and Secondary Delusions, Delusion - Diagnostic issues

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Clinical lycanthropy is a psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusional belief that the affected person is, or has, transformed into an animal. It is named after the mythical condition of lycanthropy, a supernatural affliction in which people are said to physically shapeshift into werewolves. The word zoanthropy is also sometimes used for the delusion that one has turned into an animal in general and not specifically a wolf. Clinical lycanthropy - Symptoms. Affected individuals report a delusional ...

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Clinical lycanthropy - Symptoms Clinical lycanthropy - Proposed mechanisms
Clinical lycanthropy - Neurological factors Clinical lycanthropy - Cultural contributions

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In popular culture, the term paranoia is usually used to describe excessive concern about one's own well-being, sometimes suggesting a person holds persecutory beliefs concerning a threat to themselves or their property and is often linked to a belief in conspiracy theories. In psychiatry, the term paranoia was used by Emil Kraepelin to describe a mental illness in which a delusional belief is the sole, or most prominent feature. This usage is now largely obsolete and the term is more typically used in a general sense to ...

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Paranoia - Use in psychiatry Paranoia - Examples of clinical paranoia Paranoia - Paranoia depicted in popular culture

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Erotomania is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that another person, usually of a higher social status, is in love with them. Erotomania is also called de Clerambault's syndrome, after the French psychiatrist Gaëtan Gatian de Clerambault (1872 - 1934) who published a comprehensive review paper on the subject (Les Psychoses Passionelles) in 1921. Erotomania - History. Early references to the condition can be found in the work of Hippocrates, Erasistratus, Pluta ...

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Erotomania - History Erotomania - Contemporary syndrome Erotomania - Erotomania in fiction

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Psychosis is a generic psychiatric term for mental states in which the components of rational thought and perception are severely impaired. Persons experiencing a psychosis may experience hallucinations, hold delusional beliefs (e.g. paranoid delusions), demonstrate personality changes and exhibit disorganized thinking (see thought disorder). This is often accompanied by lack of insight into the unusual or bizarre nature of such behavior, difficulties with social interaction and impairments in carrying out the activities of daily livi ...

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Psychosis - Overview Psychosis - Psychotic experience
Psychosis - Hallucinations Psychosis - Delusions and paranoia Psychosis - Thought disorder Psychosis - Lack of insight
Psychosis - Medical understanding of psychosis
Psychosis - Psychosis and brain function Psychosis - Cannabis and psychosis Psychosis - Non-psychiatric conditions and psychosis

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The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his blood or internal organs. It is named after Jules Cotard (1840 - 1889) a French neurologist who first described the condition, which he called le délire de négation ("negation delirium"), in a lecture in Paris in 1880. In this lecture, Cotard described a patient with the moniker of Mademoiselle X, who denied the existence of God, the Devil, several parts of her body and denied she needed to eat. Later she believed she was ete ...

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The core of the syndrome is that the affected person has a delusional belief that another person, usually of higher social status, is secretly in love with them. The sufferer may also believe that the subject of their delusion secretly communicates their love by subtle methods such as body posture, arrangement of household objects and other seemingly innocuous acts. The object of the delusion usually has little or no contact with the delusional person, who often believes t ...

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Erotomania, Erotomania - History, Erotomania - Contemporary syndrome, Erotomania - Erotomania in fiction

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In the unrestricted use of the term, common paranoid delusions can include the belief that the person is being followed, poisoned or loved at a distance (often by a media figure or important person, a delusion known as erotomania or de Clerambault syndrome). Other common paranoid delusions include the belief that the person has an imaginary disease or parasitic infection (delusional parasitosis); that the person is on a special quest or has been chosen by God; that the person has had thoughts inserted or removed from conscious thought; or that the p ...

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Paranoia, Paranoia - Use in psychiatry, Paranoia - Examples of clinical paranoia, Paranoia - Paranoia depicted in popular culture

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In his original attempt at classifying different forms of mental illness, Emil Kraepelin used the term pure paranoia to describe a condition where a delusion was present, but without any apparent deterioration in intellectual abilities and without any of the other features of dementia praecox, the condition later renamed schizophrenia. In the original Greek, παράνοια (paranoia) means simply madness (para = outside; nous = mind). Kraeplin's developed a definition from this root involving delusional beliefs. Notabl ...

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Paranoia, Paranoia - Use in psychiatry, Paranoia - Examples of clinical paranoia, Paranoia - Paranoia depicted in popular culture

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Affected individuals report a delusional belief that they have transformed, or are in the process of transforming into another animal. It has been linked with the altered states of mind that accompany psychosis (the reality-bending mental state that typically involves delusions and hallucinations) with the transformation only seeming to happen in the mind and behaviour of the affected person. A study1 on lycanthropy from the McLean Hospital reported on a series of cases and proposed some diagnostic criteria by which lycanth ...

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Clinical lycanthropy, Clinical lycanthropy - Symptoms, Clinical lycanthropy - Proposed mechanisms, Clinical lycanthropy - Neurological factors, Clinical lycanthropy - Cultural contributions

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