EXPRESS: Schizotypy is associated with difficulty maintaining multiple hypotheses

To be honest, sometimes I love complexity.

At least from the abstract the article seems to be harking back to cognitivist approaches to delusion. Is intensity of conviction a reliable measure of delusion?

Yes, it is one of the criteria that defines a delusion. The other criterion is how ā€œrealisticā€ a belief is. I say realistic rather than real or true, because from the perspective of another person, even a real experience of the first person can seem unrealistic, or indeed, ā€œdelusionalā€.

For example, I have had an experience of time travel (only a few seconds back), and this would seem doubtful to most people, but it was as real as anything else Iā€™ve experienced in life. Did it in fact happen or did it not? I canā€™t really answer that question. I believe it was real, but of course I cannot prove it. I can consider different alternatives to interpreting my experiences, without rigidly clinging to my beliefs; this would tend to suggest the beliefs are not of delusional intensity.

I donā€™t have difficulty maintaining multiple mutually contradicting hypotheses. In fact, I have become better at it after my first psychosis.

-Albert.

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Iā€™m familiar with the diagnostic criteria but you might have also heard of non cognitivist approaches to understanding delusions which from my laymanā€™s perspective appear to have greater explanatory power. My own experiences are not unlike what you describe in the second paragraph, double bookkeeping and the rest. I donā€™t think ive ever believed in any of my delusions 100% but that didnā€™t stop my doctors from diagnosing me with sz. To complicate things further Iā€™ve held some of my Ocd overvalued ideas with something close to delusional intensity. So I guess Iā€™m in two minds about it. What has been your experience?

Alas, my experience, much like yours, is that psychiatrists often disregard the criterion of rigid conviction, sometimes even when the content of the belief is entirely plausible. Eg. I have mentioned a person Iā€™ve met, and communicated with, in life (though on the Internet) and said she is a psychoanalyst. They have suggested this is a delusion! Also, I have revealed that I have attempted and experimented with telepathy (including with the psychoanalyst) and they have concluded I have some kind of delusional belief in telepathy. I have even emphasised that my telepathy attempts seemed to be unsuccessful. I have also emphasised that I have no proof of either the name of the psychoanalyst, nor that she is indeed a psychoanalyst.

-A.

Clearly absolute conviction with ordinary content is by no means delusional. And even uncertainty about those things need not be absolute to constitute delusion.

I could be wrong but by ordinary he probably meant non bizarre.

Did you hold your delusions with absolute conviction?

My conviction of my own adress being what it is is non bizarre and quite ordinary, though absolute while non delusional. Even doubts about it in usual circumstances would be quite delusional imo.

The ontic ones not entirely. The ontological ones more so, though I would not say I ā€˜heldā€™ them.

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The DSM mentions that it may be difficult to distinguish delusions from strongly held beliefs. This is of course true. Both the degree of conviction and the content of the belief are factors in classification. A funny or even bizarre idea, in my view, is merely an idea or belief, albeit a funny or bizarre one, in the absence of rigid conviction. If a person is not even willing to discuss ā€œthought experimentsā€ concerning the belief, then in my mind, it is a delusion, perhaps even if its content is ordinary.

In practice, this is an abstract or ā€œacademicā€ discussion, and what really matters is the idiosyncrasies of the particular diagnostician classifying us.

As for me, a lot of my beliefs are not even ā€œbeliefsā€, only currently favoured working hypotheses. In other words, I struggle (or at least have struggled) with pathological doubt.

-A.

@firemonkey

This is supposed to be your thread! What do you think of the article?