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Ideas of reference and delusions of reference describe the phenomenon of an individual experiencing innocuous events or mere
coincidence A coincidence is a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances that have no apparent causal connection with one another. The perception of remarkable coincidences may lead to supernatural, occult, or paranormal claims, or it may lead t ...
s and believing they have strong personal significance. It is "the notion that everything one perceives in the world relates to one's own destiny", usually in a negative and hostile manner. In psychiatry,
delusion A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some o ...
s of reference form part of the diagnostic criteria for
psychotic Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
illnesses such as
schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...
,
delusional disorder Delusional disorder is a mental illness in which a person has delusions, but with no accompanying prominent hallucinations, thought disorder, mood disorder, or significant flattening of affect.American Psychiatric Association. (2013). ''Diagnosti ...
,
bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
(during the elevated stages of
mania Mania, also known as manic syndrome, is a mental and behavioral disorder defined as a state of abnormally elevated arousal, affect, and energy level, or "a state of heightened overall activation with enhanced affective expression together wit ...
),
narcissistic personality disorder Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, a diminished ability or unwillingness to empathize with other ...
, and
schizotypal personality disorder Schizotypal personality disorder (STPD or SPD), also known as schizotypal disorder, is a mental and behavioral disorder. DSM classification describes the disorder specifically as a personality disorder characterized by thought disorder, parano ...
, and even
autism The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
when under periods of intense stress. To a lesser extent, it can be a hallmark of
paranoid personality disorder Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is a mental illness characterized by paranoid delusions, and a pervasive, long-standing suspiciousness and generalized mistrust of others. People with this personality disorder may be hypersensitive, easily in ...
as well as
body dysmorphic disorder Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), occasionally still called dysmorphophobia, is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive idea that some aspect of one's own body part or appearance is severely flawed and therefore warrants exceptional meas ...
. Such symptoms can also be caused by
intoxication Intoxication — or poisoning, especially by an alcoholic or narcotic substance — may refer to: * Substance intoxication: ** Alcohol intoxication ** LSD intoxication ** Toxidrome ** Tobacco intoxication ** Cannabis intoxication ** Cocaine i ...
, such as from stimulants like
methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamph ...
.


Psychoanalytic views

In
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
's view, "Delusions of being watched present this power in a regressive form, thus revealing its genesis...voices, as well as the undefined multitude, are brought into the foreground again by the nowiki/>paranoid.html" ;"title="paranoid.html" ;"title="nowiki/>paranoid">nowiki/>paranoid">paranoid.html" ;"title="nowiki/>paranoid">nowiki/>paranoiddisease, and so the evolution of conscience is reproduced regressively." As early as 1928, Freud's contemporary, Carl Jung, introduced the concept of synchronicity, a theory of "meaningful coincidences". In 1946, Otto Fenichel concluded that "the projection of the superego is most clearly seen in ideas of reference and of being influenced....Delusions of this kind merely bring to the patient from the outside what his self-observing and self-critical conscience actually tells him."
Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...
similarly saw ideas of reference as linked to "the unbalancing of the relation to the capital Other and the radical anomaly that it involves, qualified, improperly, but not without some approximation to the truth, in old clinical medicine, as partial delusion"—the "big other, that is, the other of language, the Names-of-the-Father, signifiers or words", in short, the realm of the superego.


Anti-psychiatry

Validation rather than clinical condemnation of ideas of reference is frequently expressed by anti-psychiatrists, on the grounds, for example, that "the patient's ideas of reference and influence and delusions of persecution were merely descriptions of her parents' behavior toward her." While accepting that "there is certainly confusion between persecutory fantasies and persecutory realities", figures like David Cooper believe that "ideas of connection with apparently remote people, or ideas of being influenced by others equally remote, are in fact stating their experience" of
social influence Social influence comprises the ways in which individuals adjust their behavior to meet the demands of a social environment. It takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience (human behavior), obedience, lead ...
– albeit in a distorted form by "including in their network of influence institutions as absurd as
Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...
, the Queen of England, the
President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
, or the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
".
R. D. Laing Ronald David Laing (7 October 1927 – 23 August 1989), usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illnessin particular, the experience of psychosis. Laing's views on the causes and treatment o ...
took a similar view of the person who was "saying that his brains have been taken from him, that his actions are controlled from outer space, etc. ''Such delusions are partially achieved derealization-realizations.''" Laing also considered how "in typical paranoid ideas of reference, the person feels that the murmurings and mutterings he hears as he walks past a street crowd are about him. In a bar, a burst of laughter behind his back is at some joke cracked about him", but felt that deeper acquaintance with the patient reveals in fact that "what tortures him is not so much his delusions of reference, but his harrowing suspicion that he is of no importance to anyone, that no one is referring to him at all."


Delusions of reference

Ideas of reference must be distinguished from delusions of reference, which may be similar in content but are held with greater conviction. With the former, but not the latter, the person holding them may have "the ''feeling'' that strangers are talking about him/her, but if challenged, acknowledges that the people may be talking about something else". From the psychoanalytic view, there may be at the same time "transitions...to delusions" from ideas of reference: "abortive ideas of reference, in the beginning of their development or, in schizotypal personalities, continuously, may remain subject to the patient's criticism...under adverse circumstances, by minimal economic shifts, however, reality testing may be lost and daydreams of this kind turn into delusions." It has been noted that a person "rigidly controlled by his superego...readily forms ''sensitive ideas of reference''. A ''key experience'' may occur in his life circumstances and quite suddenly these ideas become structured as delusions of reference." Within the "focus of paranoia...that man crossing his legs, that woman wearing that blouse—it can't just be accidental. It has a particular meaning, is intended to convey something.


Examples

Persons with ideas of reference may experience: * Believing that "somehow everyone on a passing city bus is talking about them". * Feeling that people on television or radio are either talking about them or talking directly to them. * Believing that headlines or articles in newspapers have been written exclusively for them. * Believing that events (even world events) have been deliberately contrived for them, or have special personal significance for them. * Believing that the lyrics of a song are specifically about them. * Believing that the normal function of cell phones, computers, and other electronic devices is to send secret and significant messages that only they can understand or believe. * Perceiving objects or events as having been deliberately set up to convey a particular meaning to themselves. * Thinking "that the slightest careless movement on the part of another person had great personal meaning...increased significance". * Thinking that posts on social networking websites or Internet blogs have hidden meanings pertaining to them. * Believing that the behavior of others is in reference to an abnormal, offensive body odor, which in reality is non-existent and cannot be smelled or detected by others (see:
olfactory reference syndrome Olfactory reference syndrome (ORS) is a psychiatric condition in which there is a persistent false belief and preoccupation with the idea of emitting abnormal body odors which the patient thinks are foul and offensive to other individuals. People w ...
).


Literary analogues

* In ''
Mrs Dalloway ''Mrs. Dalloway'' is a novel by Virginia Woolf, published on 14 May 1925, that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a fictional upper-class woman in post-First World War England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels. The working ...
'' (1925), as a plane flies over a shell-shocked soldier: "So, thought Septimus, they are signalling to me...smoke words". The author,
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...
, recorded in a memoir how she herself "had lain in bed...thinking that the birds were singing Greek choruses and that King Edward was using the foulest possible language among Ozzie Dickinson's azaleas". * In
Margaret Mahy Margaret Mahy (21 March 1936 – 23 July 2012) was a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growi ...
's ''Memory'' (1987), the confused adolescent hero decides "to abandon himself to the magic of chance. From now on his signposts would be words overheard accidentally, graffiti, advertisements, street names...the clues the city offered him." * The Naval Intelligence hero of
Patrick O'Brian Patrick O'Brian, Order of the British Empire, CBE (12 December 1914 – 2 January 2000), born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of sea novels set in the Royal Navy during t ...
's '' Treason's Harbour'' (1983) reflects ruefully that "after a while an intelligence-agent tended to see spies everywhere, rather as certain lunatics saw references to themselves in every newspaper." * In
Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...
's short story ''
Signs and Symbols "Signs and Symbols" is a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and first published, May 15, 1948 in ''The New Yorker'' and then in ''Nabokov's Dozen'' (1958: Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York). In ''The New Yorker'', the st ...
'' (1948), initially published in 1948, the parents of a suicidal youth suffering from a variation of this illness, "referential mania", decide to remove him from a hospital in order to keep a more watchful eye.


See also


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ideas Of Reference Delusional disorders Medical signs Delusions