Understanding MindBrain

 
 
Random Article


 
Latest Posts
 

“Sleights of mind”: Delusions, defences, and self‐deception

 

 
Overview
 

 
Summary
 
 
 
 
 


 


Bottom Line

How do delusions occur? A recent review discusses two models; a motivational approach and a cognitive deficit approach. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry Issue: Volume 10, Number 4 / August 2005 Pages: 305 – 326 Abstract Two different modes of theorising about delusions are explored. On the one hand is the motivational approach, which regards delusions as serving […]

0
Posted September 2, 2005 by thomasr

 
Full Article
 
 

How do delusions occur? A recent review discusses two models; a motivational approach and a cognitive deficit approach.

Cognitive Neuropsychiatry

Issue: Volume 10, Number 4 / August 2005

Pages: 305 – 326

Abstract

Two different modes of theorising about delusions are explored. On the one hand is the motivational approach, which regards delusions as serving a defensive, palliative, even potentially adaptive function. On the other, is the cognitive deficit approach, which conceptualises delusions as explicitly pathological, involving abnormalities in ordinary cognitive processes. The former approach, prominently exemplified by the psychoanalytic tradition, was predominant historically, but has been challenged in recent years by the latter. Some grievances against psychoanalytic theory are briefly discussed, and it is argued that although the reasons for psychoanalysis falling into scientific disrepute are partly justified, the psychodynamic notion that motivation has access to the mechanisms of belief formation is of potentially crucial theoretical utility. A variety of possible syntheses of the two theoretical modes are therefore explored, in the belief that the most comprehensive account of delusions will involve a theoretical unification of both styles of explanation. Along the way, an attempt is made to locate the notions delusion, defence, and self‐deception in a shared theoretical space.

Cognitive Neuropsychiatry


thomasr

 


0 Comments



Be the first to comment!


Leave a Response