Types
Diagnosis of a specific type of delusional disorder can sometimes be made based on the content of the delusions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) enumerates seven types:
- Erotomanic type (erotomania): delusion that another person is in love with the individual, quite frequently a famous person. The individual may breach the law as he/she tries to obsessively make contact with the desired person.
- Grandiose type: delusion of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity or believes himself/herself to be a famous person, claiming the actual person is an impostor or an impersonator.
- Jealous type: delusion that the individual's sexual partner is unfaithful when it is untrue. The patient may follow the partner, check text messages, emails, phone calls etc. in an attempt to find "evidence" of the infidelity.
- Persecutory type: This delusion is a common subtype. It includes the belief that the person (or someone to whom the person is close) is being malevolently treated in some way. The patient may believe that he/she has been drugged, spied-on, harassed and so on and may seek "justice" by making police reports, taking court action or even acting violently.
- Somatic type: delusions that the person has some physical defect or general medical condition
- Mixed type: delusions with characteristics of more than one of the above types but with no one theme predominating.
- Unspecified type: delusions that cannot be clearly determine or doesn't characterize in any of the categories in the specific types.
Read more about this topic: Delusional Disorder
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