Delusional disorder is also known as paranoia. It is a chronic psychiatric condition in which the affected individual experiences delusions marked by great intensity. These delusions can be persecutory, erotomatic, grandiose, somatic and jealous or mixed in nature. The characteristic feature of this disorder is that individuals with the disorder experience delusions and exhibit an impaired contact with reality, but without the peculiarity, fragmentation and severe personality, thought and behavior dissolution as in schizophrenia.

How the disorder develops:

On a number of occasions it becomes extremely difficult to diagnose this disorder, mainly because the truth and falseness of an idea cannot be determined in an outright manner. For instance, a number of individuals still believe that the world is flat or that the Nazi holocaust against the Jews never occurred, despite the existing evidence. Delusional thought patterns is quite similar to normal thinking and revolves around the creation of a defense projection in which the individual allocates his/her own negative traits and undesirable characteristics to others. In order to curb their own shortcomings and negativities, these individuals blame them on others. These recurrent attempts at thought suppression lead to the development of involuntary intrusions of the targeted thoughts into conscious awareness. Over a period of time, these delusional thoughts start taking the shape of beliefs and the individual develops what is known as delusional disorder.

Types of Delusions:

Persecutory Type: Individuals with this type of delusions are extremely suspicious of their close friends and relatives. They have problems in their interpersonal relationships and often complain of being threatened or being plotted against. They keep a watchful eye on others and feel that they are being stalked, spied on or being bad-mouthed. They develop false notions that they have enemies who are trying to harm or kill them.

Jealous Type: Individuals with this type of delusions often feel that their romantic partner or spouse is cheating on them.

Erotomatic Type: These individuals feel that a famous celebrity, politician or singer is in love with them and wishes to start a sexual liaison.

Somatic Type: These individuals feel that they have an incurable physical illness or disease which has an absurd nature.

Grandiose Type: The individual assumes of having acquired extraordinary power, status or authority. These individuals may claim to be a president, famous celebrity, superman or even God.

Mixed: This diagnosis is used where there are combinations of the above but where no single theme predominates.