Delusions of reference have been thoroughly analyzed and explained by Bleuler.[1] Feelings of reference are found where there is a markedly accentuated complex. It is the peculiarity of all strong complexes to assimilate as much as possible; it is also a known fact that at the time of a strong affect we often have a momentary feeling as if "some one noticed it." An acute affect will especially cause assimilations of quite indifferent occurrences from the environment and thus the coarsest errors of judgment result. When we meet with some mishap we are quite ready during our first outbursts of anger to assume that someone intentionally injured and insulted us. In hysteria such prejudice may establish itself for a long time, corresponding to the magnitude and duration of the affect, and through which, without anything further, slight delusions of reference result. From this to the delusional assumption of strange machinations is only a step. This road leads to paranoia.[2] The incredible and grotesque delusions of dementia præcox are frequently with difficulty explained by the delusions of reference. If, for example, a precocious dement perceives everything taking place within and without him as unnatural and "concocted," we may assume a stronger disturbance than delusions of reference.[3] There is evidently something in the apperception of dementia præcox which prevents normal assimilation. The apperception either lacks a nuance or possesses one too much, thus receiving a strange accentuation (Berze!). In the hysterical realms we find analogies to this in disturbances of the feelings of activity. Every psychic activity, aside from the tone of pleasure and pain, is accompanied by still another feeling-tone which qualifies it in its own particular way (Höffding). What we mean by this will be best explained by the important observations of Janet in psychasthenics. The
- ↑ Affektivität, etc. Compare also Neisser: Allg. Ztschr. f. Psych., Bd. LIII.
- ↑ Compare Marguliés: Monatschr. f. Psych, u. Neur., Bd. X, and Gierlich: Arch. f. Psych., Bd. XL. See Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series No. 2, Studies in Paranoia, for a translation of Gierlich's article.
- ↑ A precocious dement under my care finds everything artificial; what the doctor tells him, what the other patients do, the cleaning in the ward, the food, etc., all are artificial. It is all done by "one of his persecutors" who has a princess "by the head and thus blabs to the people what they are to do."
