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The term '[[delusion]]' ([[French]]: ''[[délire]]'') is used in [[psychiatry]] to describe a firmly held [[false]] [[belief]], inconsistent with the information available and with the beliefs of the subject's social group.
==Paranoia==
[[Delusion]]s are the central [[clinical]] feature of [[paranoia]], and can range from single ideas to complex networks of [[belief]]s.
==Name-of-the-Father==
In [[Lacan]]ian terms, the [[paranoiac]] [[lack]]s the [[Name-of-the-Father]], and the [[delusion]] is the [[paranoiac]]'s attempt to fill the [[hole]] left in his [[symbolic]] universe by the [[absence]] of this primordial [[signifier]].
Thus the [[delusion]] is not the 'illness' of [[paranoia]] itself; it is, on the contrarybut rather, the [[paranoiac]]'s attempt to heal himself, to pull himself out of the breakdown of the [[symbolic]] universe by means of a [[substitute formation]].
As [[Freud]] commented in his work on [[Schreber]]:
<blockquote>"What we take to be the pathological production, the delusional formation, is in reality the attempt at recovery, the reconstruction."<ref>Freud, 1911c: SE XII, 71</ref></blockquote>
[[Lacan]] insists on emphasizes the significance of the [[delusion]] and stresses the importance of attending closely to the [[psychosis|psychotic]] [[patient]]'s own account of his [[delusion]].
The [[delusion]] is a form of [[discourse]], and must therefore be understood as "a field of [[signification ]] that has organised a certain [[signifier]]."<ref>{{S3}} p.121</ref>
For this reason all [[delusion]]al phenomena are "clarified in reference to the functions and structure of [[speech]]."<ref>{{S3}} p.310</ref>
The [[paranoid]] [[delusion]]al construction may take many forms.
One common form, the "delusion of persecution," revolves around the [[Other of the Other]], a hidden [[subject ]] who pulls the strings of the [[big Other]] (the [[symbolic]] [[order]]), and who controls our thoughts, conspires against us, watches us, etc.
==References==
<references/>
==See Also==
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Jacques Lacan]]
[[Category:Treatment]]
[[Category:Practice]]
[[Category:Freudian psychology]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
