Transmitting delusional beliefs in a hypnotic model of folie à deux

•We used hypnosis to model transference of delusional beliefs from a “primary” to a “secondary” individual.•We manipulated the status of the primary to portray them as either credible or merely interesting.•Many high hypnotisable individuals adopted the primary’s beliefs.•Only high hypnotisable indi...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Consciousness and cognition Vol. 22; no. 4; pp. 1285 - 1297
Main Authors:	Freeman, Luke P., Cox, Rochelle E., Barnier, Amanda J.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01-12-2013 Elsevier Elsevier BV
Subjects:	Adolescent Adult Biological and medical sciences Consciousness Delusion Delusions - psychology Female Folie à deux Humans Hypnosis Hypnosis - methods Hypnotic analogue Male Medical sciences Models, Psychological Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry Psychopathology. Psychiatry Relaxation. Biofeedback. Hypnosis. Selfregulation. Meditation Shared Paranoid Disorder - psychology Treatments Young Adult Delusion Folie à deux Hypnosis Hypnotic analogue Belief Human Cognition Models
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	•We used hypnosis to model transference of delusional beliefs from a “primary” to a “secondary” individual.•We manipulated the status of the primary to portray them as either credible or merely interesting.•Many high hypnotisable individuals adopted the primary’s beliefs.•Only high hypnotisable individuals with a credible primary elaborated upon the suggested delusion. Folie à deux is the transference of delusional ideas from one ‘primary’ individual to one or more ‘secondary’ individuals (Lasègue & Falret, 1877). However, it is difficult to investigate experimentally because often only one patient is identified as delusional. We investigated whether hypnosis could model the experiences of the secondary in this delusion. Our primary was a confederate, who displayed two delusional beliefs and attempted to transmit them to hypnotised subjects. We manipulated the status of the confederate so that they were portrayed as either “credible” or merely “interesting”.Many high hypnotisable individuals adopted the confederate’s beliefs and confabulated evidence in support of them.Also, subjects who interacted with a credible confederate extended their delusions beyond those displayed by the confederate. We discuss the strengths and limitations of this approach and suggest ways to improve the validity of this model.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1053-8100 1090-2376
DOI:	10.1016/j.concog.2013.07.011