Chronic hallucinatory psychosis is a

psychosis 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 ...

subtype, classified under "Other nonorganic psychosis" by the ICD-10 Chapter V: Mental and behavioural disorders. Other abnormal mental symptoms in the early stages are, as a rule, absent. The patient is most usually quiet and orderly, with a good memory. First described by Ballet, during 1912, ''it has often been a matter of the greatest difficulty'' to decide under which heading of the recognized classifications individual members of this group should be placed. As the hallucinations give rise to slight depression, some might possibly be included under

melancholia Melancholia or melancholy (from el, µέλαινα χολή ',Burton, Bk. I, p. 147 meaning black bile) is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly d ...

. In others,

paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy co ...

may develop. Others, again, might be swept into the widespread net of

dementia praecox Dementia praecox (meaning a "premature dementia" or "precocious madness") is a disused psychiatric diagnosis that originally designated a chronic, deteriorating psychotic disorder characterized by rapid cognitive disintegration, usually beginni ...

. This state of affairs cannot be regarded as satisfactory, for they are not truly cases of melancholia, paranoia, dementia praecox or any other described affection. This disease, as its name suggests, is a hallucinatory case, for it is its main feature. These may be of all senses, but auditory hallucinations are the most prominent. At the beginning, the patient may realize that the hallucination is a morbid phenomenon and unaccountable. They may claim to hear a "voice" speaking, though there is no one in the flesh actually doing so. Such a state of affairs may last for years and possibly, though rarely, for life, and the subject would not be deemed insane in the ordinary sense of the word. It's probable, however, that this condition forms the first stage of the illness, which eventually develops on definite lines. What usually happens is the patient seeks an explanation for the hallucinations. As none is forthcoming he/she tries to account for their presence and the result is a

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 som ...

, and, most frequently, a delusion of persecution. Also, it needs to be noted that the delusion is a comparatively late arrival and is the logical result of the hallucinations.

References

Sources

A paper read at the Quarterly Meeting of the Medico-Psychological Association on February 24, 1920, written by Robert Hunter Steen, King's College Hospital, London

External links

{{Medical resources , ICD10 = F28 Psychosis Paranoia