Many mental illnesses are accompanied by disturbances in the thought process. One of the main symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and other painful mental states is the appearance of delusional and overvalued ideas. What is the difference between these violations and what do they have in common? You will learn about this by reading this article.
Research history and brief definition
The term "overvalued ideas" was introduced by the psychiatrist Wernicke in 1892.
Ideas of this kind are judgments that arise in the patient under the influence of events in the external world. At the same time, the judgment has a strong emotional coloring, it prevails in thinking and subjugates human behavior.
Wernicke divided overvalued ideas into two categories:
- normal, in which the experiences experienced by the patient are commensurate with the event that caused them;
- painful, the main symptom of which is the excessive exaggeration of the causes that caused them.
It is important to note that, focusing on an overvalued idea, the patient finds it difficult to perform other tasks, has difficulty concentrating.
Main signs
What are overvalued ideas? Psychiatry highlights several of their main characteristics:
- Ideas come from real events.
- The subjective significance of ideas and the events that caused them for the patient is excessively high.
- Always have a pronounced emotional coloring.
- The patient can explain the idea to others.
- The idea has a close relationship with the patient's beliefs and value system.
- The patient seeks to prove the correctness of his idea to others, while he can behave quite aggressively.
- The idea has a direct impact on the patient's actions and daily activities. It can be said that everything that a person does is somehow connected with his idea, the bearer of which he is.
- With some effort, you can dissuade the patient from the correctness of the idea.
- The patient retains the ability to objectively evaluate his own personality.
Can he althy people have such ideas?
Overvalued and obsessive ideas can also occur in he althy people who do not suffer from mental disorders. An example is scientists who are passionately devoted to their work and devoted to some scientific idea, for the sake of which they are ready to neglect their own interests and even the interests of loved ones.
Supervaluable ideas are characterized by constancy, they are not alien to consciousness and do not make their bearer an inharmonious personality. Some psychiatrists, for example, D. A. Amenitsky, call this kindideas are "dominant". If a person has a dominant idea, he becomes extremely purposeful and is ready to do anything in order to prove to others that he is right.
It is worth noting that D. O. Gurevich believed that the dominant ideas cannot be called overvalued in the full sense of the word: they can only indicate a tendency to their appearance. The researcher believed that overvalued ideas always have the character of pathology and make the personality disharmonious, affecting adaptive capabilities and making thinking inconsistent and devoid of logic. However, over time, the dominant idea can become overvalued, and this is associated with the development of a mental illness. Under certain circumstances, this can develop into delirium: judgment begins to dominate the psyche, subjugating the patient's personality, and becomes a symptom of a serious mental disorder.
Overvalued and crazy ideas: is there a clear line?
There is no consensus on the issue of the relationship between crazy and overvalued ideas. There are two main positions on this issue:
- delusions, overvalued ideas and dominant ideas are independent symptoms;
- there is no difference between crazy and overvalued ideas.
Why did such uncertainty arise and what does modern psychiatry think about this? Overvalued ideas and nonsense do not have an unambiguous definition, and it is almost impossible to draw a clear line between them. By thisFor this reason, in the scientific literature and research, these concepts are often confused with each other and are considered synonymous. For example, the main features of overvalued ideas are considered to be a dominant place in the psyche, a bright emotional coloring, the ability to dissuade the patient of the correctness of the idea, as well as its comprehensibility to others. However, the first two signs are also characteristic of delusional ideas. Some patients' delusions may also seem understandable and even rational. Therefore, we can speak with full confidence about only one differential sign: the ability to convince the patient that his idea is erroneous. The syndrome of overvalued ideas is characterized by all of the above, except for the patient's unshakable conviction that he is right. In the case of delirium, it is impossible to convince a person. If the patient is confident in his irrational beliefs, then we can conclude that he is delusional.
Reasons for appearance
Research shows that two factors are enough to trigger a symptom:
- The personality traits of a person, that is, a tendency to overvalued ideas. As a rule, patients in whom overvalued delusional ideas are found have character accentuations and inflated values. That is, a certain enthusiasm is characteristic of a person throughout his life.
- A certain situation that serves as a "trigger" for the formation of an overvalued idea. Often these are psychotraumatic situations: for example, if a relative of a person is seriously ill, there may bean overvalued idea concerning the care of one's own he alth. At the same time, in a premorbid (pre-morbid state), a person should have anxious and hypochondriacal features.
Thus, the syndrome of overvalued ideas develops according to the same laws as any neurotic disorder. A person with a certain premorbid, getting into a traumatic situation, develops a certain idea, which at the same time does not conflict with pre-existing values and beliefs.
Contents
Supervaluable ideas, which are classified below, are of great variety. The most common varieties are:
- Invention ideas. The patient believes that he can invent some device that will change the life of mankind. A person is ready to devote all his time to the creation of his invention. Interestingly, often such enthusiasm brings good results.
- Ideas of reformism. Such ideas are characterized by the fact that the patient is confident that he knows how to change the world for the better.
- The idea of adultery. A person is sure that his partner is unfaithful to him. At the same time, a lot of efforts are being made to prove this idea. Being too well-groomed, being late at work for five minutes, or even watching a movie with a handsome actor can be regarded as evidence of infidelity.
- Hypochondriacal overvalued and obsessive ideas. A person believes that he is sick with a dangerous disease. If doctors fail to find confirmation of this thought, thenthe patient will go to new hospitals and undergo expensive diagnostic procedures to prove his case.
Crazy Ideas Key Features
In some circumstances, an overvalued idea, examples of which are given above, may become delusional. Delusion is a set of judgments that have nothing to do with reality. Crazy ideas completely take over the mind of the patient, while it is impossible to convince him.
The content of crazy ideas is always connected with the events that surround the patient. At the same time, the content of ideas varies from era to era. So, in past centuries, mystical ideas associated with witchcraft, obsession, corruption, evil eye or love spells were very common. Today, such ideas are regarded as archaic forms of delusion. In the 19th century, patients developed delusional ideas, the main content of which was self-accusation and thoughts about their own sinfulness. At the beginning of the 20th century, hypochondriacal ideas, as well as ideas of impoverishment, dominated. These days, patients often have ideas of persecution by the security services, a delusional fear of psychotropic weapons, and even ideas that the world will be destroyed due to the operation of the hadron collider. Delusions of possession have been replaced by delusions of influence from aliens from other planets.
It is worth noting that if the emergence of overvalued ideas is closely related to events in the patient's life, then in the presence of delusions, determine why the ideas have a certain content,not always possible.
Basic forms of delusions
Based on the mechanisms of development of delusional ideas, there are three main forms of delusion:
- Delusional perception. At the same time, patients evaluate what they perceive in a peculiar way. It takes on a new meaning and inspires fear, anxiety and even horror.
- Delusional idea, expressed in the sudden appearance of unusual thoughts or ideas. Such ideas may have nothing to do with reality: for example, the patient decides that he is the messiah and must save the world from certain death. At the same time, under the influence of this kind of ideas, a reassessment of the entire past life of the patient often occurs.
- Delusional insight. A person is sure that he has comprehended the meaning of everything that exists. At the same time, his explanations of reality seem to others strange, pretentious and not substantiated by any facts.
Delirium may be accompanied by hallucinations: in these cases it is called "hallucinatory delusions". Overvalued ideas are never accompanied by hallucinations. As a rule, this symptom occurs in patients suffering from schizophrenia.
Containing crazy ideas
The following types of delusions are most common in psychiatric practice:
- Querulant nonsense. The patient is prone to litigation, appeals to the courts to prove his case, writes numerous complaints to various authorities. At the same time, he can complain, for example, about neighbors who irradiate him from their apartment or even want to kill him.
- Nonsense of reformism. Based on very peculiar and unusual ideas, the patient seeks to change the political structure of the country (or even the world) or the social structure of society.
- Nonsense of invention. Patients dedicate their lives to creating some kind of mechanism, such as a teleporter, a time machine, or a perpetual motion machine. At the same time, the fundamental impossibility of inventing such devices cannot stop a person. A significant part of the family budget can be spent on the purchase of the necessary parts: a person can easily leave his children without the most necessary, just to "bring to life" his creation.
- Religious nonsense. Patients have a very peculiar understanding of religion. For example, a person with religious delusions considers himself a son of God or a new reincarnation of the Buddha. In schizophrenia, the person even experiences the conviction that God regularly contacts, advises, and guides them.
- Megalomania, or delusional ideas of greatness. A person overestimates the importance of his personality and believes that he has a direct influence on the events taking place in the world. Such patients may believe that it was they who caused the earthquake on another continent or caused the plane to crash.
- Erotic nonsense. At the same time, the delirium of jealousy is inherent in men, and love delirium, or erotomania, is more often observed in women. The delusion of jealousy is expressed in a firm belief in the infidelity of a partner. In the presence of an overvalued idea with a similar content, a person can be convinced that he is mistaken, but with delirium it is impossible to do this. Patientsmay be convinced that the partner managed to cheat on them by going out for a few minutes for bread. With erotomania, the patient is sure that another person has romantic feelings for him. As a rule, this person does not even know the patient: it can be a show business star, a politician, an actor, etc. In a love delirium, there is an unshakable conviction that the object of delusion sends him secret signs during his speeches or informs encrypted information in their publications or interviews.
A special place is occupied by pathological persecutors: in this case, patients have a desire to harm their imaginary opponents.
Thus, it can be noted that it is not always possible to distinguish by content which patient has delusions and which one has an overvalued idea. Psychiatry suggests focusing on what role the idea occupies in the mind of the patient and whether it is possible to make him doubt his own beliefs.
Chronic and acute delusions
There are two main forms of delirium - acute and chronic. Naturally, in chronic delirium, the symptoms accompany the patient for a long time, fading away under the influence of drug treatment. In acute delirium, symptoms develop suddenly and fairly quickly.
Chronic delirium has a number of rather unpleasant consequences, which include:
- Fraud. Delusions can cause the patient to deceive others in order to prove his own case. Oftenpatients who believe in their own messianism organize entire sects, collecting rather impressive "contributions" from the flock.
- False testimony in court: the patient is convinced that he is telling the truth, while he can easily confirm his case on a lie detector.
- Vagrancy: under the influence of delusional ideas, the patient may begin to lead a marginal lifestyle.
- The development of induced (induced) delirium in the patient's family members. Close people can join the patient's delusional ideas, especially if they are quite impressionable, suggestible people.
In addition, under the influence of delusional ideas, the patient can commit a serious crime, for example, to kill a person, deciding that he encroached on his life or the lives of his loved ones. Often murders are committed by patients suffering from delusions of jealousy, firmly believing in the infidelity of a partner. At the same time, aggression can be directed both at the “changed” partner, and at the one with whom the betrayal allegedly occurred. In addition, under the influence of delusions, a person can commit suicide: this often happens with delusions of self-accusation. Therefore, if a patient has a crazy overvalued idea, treatment should be immediate: otherwise, a person can harm himself and those around him. As a rule, therapy is carried out in specialized medical institutions, where the patient stays under the supervision of specialists around the clock.
Superior and crazy ideas have a lot in common. They occupy a dominant place in the mind of the patient, make him act in a certain way.way, affect the adaptation in society. However, delirium is considered a more severe disorder: if, in the presence of an overvalued idea, a person can be convinced that he is delusional, then delusional beliefs disappear only after drug therapy. At the same time, delirium always appears as one of the symptoms of a serious mental disorder, while overvalued ideas can also appear in he althy people. Ideas that have the character of supervalue can develop over time and acquire the features of delirium, so their appearance requires an immediate appeal to specialists in the field of psychiatry and psychotherapy.
