A Classification System for Misidentification Syndromes

A 44-year-old man presented with an unusually colourful and complex form of delusional misidentification. He demonstrated Fregoli syndrome, environmental reduplication and the delusional belief that he and a female friend had been incorporated into the same body. This latter phenomenon has not been described before and adds a new dimension to the rich variety of these syndromes. It is suggested that the term ‘delusional hermaphroditism’ be used to describe this form of delusional misidentification.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Unusual Case of Delusional Misidentification: ‘Delusional Hermaphroditism’

Mulholland

O’Hara²

1999

“…Ellis et al [4] Silva et al [5] condition in which the patient believes that people usually, but not necessarily, close to him/her were replaced [3] or substituted [22] by impostors Banov et al [17] Oyebode and Sargeant [23] the patient believes that people familiar to him (the possibility of extending it to the 'non-familiar' is not considered) were replaced by doubles [17] or impostors [12] Silva and Leong [8] the patient believes that other people have developed different psychological identities without any change in their physical appearance Frégoli Christodoulou [16] Oyebode and Sargeant [23] '... delusional false recognition. Its essence is the delusional identifi cation of a familiar person in strangers.…”

Section: Syndromementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This holds true even for the most common and explored of these manifestations, the Capgras delusion. Several authors [5,6,13,14] have noted the failure by Englishspeaking psychiatrists to recognize that not only the case originally described by Capgras and Reboul-Lachaux but also many other accounts described in the French literature already included self-misidentifi cation as an inherent feature of such a syndrome. Actually, few seem to have based their arguments on a defi nition of Capgras delusion that already encompasses the experience of the self-double as a characteristic of the syndrome, rather than as an associated syndrome [14,15] .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Delusional Misidentification Syndrome: Why Such Nosologic Challenge Remains Intractable

Rodrigues

Banzato²

2006

The delusional misidentification syndrome has lately been the object of lengthy psychopathological discussions. Controversies persist as to how best to define it, distinguish its subtypes and set their limits. Attempts to provide this syndrome with a better conceptual framework have usually relied on proposing new definitions and classifications. In this article, we suggest that some prevailing difficulties are basically related to two separate but intertwined issues: the self-reflexive property of the human mental functioning and the first-person linguistic expression of human experience. We argue that this discussion belongs to a broader context than the one it is usually referred to, as it deals with problems germane to conceptual psychopathological investigations in general. In that regard, DMS provides us with a very telling example, to the extent to which it has, at its core, to account for the puzzling phenomena of identity, which are particularly affected by cultural and linguistic variables.

“…In addition to the syndromes defined as 'classic' DMS, i.e. Capgras delusion [4][5][6], Frégoli delusion [7], intermetamorphosis delusion [8] and the delusion of subjective doubles [9] the 'subjective' and 'reverse' types of these DMS were characterized later on [10][11][12][13][14]. In classic DMS, the patient misidentifies a certain familiar person, while in the 'reverse' type he believes that his own identity has been altered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Clonal Pluralization of the Self’: A New Form of Delusional Misidentification Syndrome

Voros

Tényi²,

Simon³

et al. 2003

The authors present a patient with paranoid schizophrenia, who has the delusion that he exists in plural numbers. The patient declares these doubles to be both psychologically and physically completely identical to him, and he believes ‘them’ to be in fact women. In connection with the case, the authors discuss the phenomena of reduplicative paramnesia and clonal pluralization, and they suggest introducing the psychopathological term ‘clonal pluralization of the self’ for the reported phenomenon.