Delusions

Summary

Delusions, central to madness and psychosis, remain poorly understood. This book provides a comprehensive review of what delusions are, their clinical features, the disorders they appear in, and similar phenomena in health and disease. It critically examines psychological and biological explanations for delusions, offering an in-depth analysis of the different approaches taken to understand them. The text is an essential resource for psychiatrists, psychologists, and neuroscientists working with or researching delusional patients and major psychiatric disorders.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Delusions, in their many different manifestations, are central to the concepts of madness and psychosis. Yet what causes them remains in many ways a complete mystery. McKenna's Delusions is the first comprehensive attempt to tackle one of the most arresting phenomena in psychiatry: an in-depth and critical review of what delusions are, the forms they can take and how they might be explained from both psychological and biological perspectives. Delusions covers key topics such as the clinical features of delusions, the disorders they are seen in, other oddities that resemble them in both health and disease, and the different approaches that have been taken to try to understand them. It is an essential book for psychiatrists and psychologists who work with delusional patients, as well as being of interest to neuroscientists engaged in research into major psychiatric disorders.