Delusion
delusion (dÈlire) Delusions are usually defined in psychiatry as firmly
held, incorrigible false beliefs, inconsistent with the information available and
with the beliefs of the subject's social group (see American Psychiatric
Association, 1987: 395; Hughes, 1981: 206). Delusions are the central clinical
feature of PARANOIA, and can range from single ideas to complex networks of
beliefs (called delusional systems).
In Lacanian terms, the paranoiac lacks 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 contrary, 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, 'What we
take to be the pathological production, the delusional formation, is in reality
the attempt at recovery, the reconstruction' (Freud, 1911c: SE XII, 71).
Lacan insists on the significance of the delusion and stresses the importance
of attending closely to the 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' (S3, 121). For this reason all
delusional phenomena are 'clarified in reference to the functions and structure
of speech' (S3, 310).
The paranoid delusional 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.