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'[[delusion]]' ([[French]]: ''[[{{Top}}délire]]'') Delusions are usually deifned in psychiatry as firmly held, incorrigible false beliefs, inconsistent with the informaion available with the beliefs of the subject's social group. 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.{{Bottom}}

[[Delusion]]s are usually defined in [[psychiatry]] as firmly held, incorrigible false beliefs, inconsistent with the information available with the beliefs of the [[subject]]'s social group. [[Delusion]]s are the central [[clinical]] feature of [[paranoia]], and can range from single ideas to complex networks of [[belief]]s.

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|symbolic universe]] universe by the [[absence]] of this primordial [[signifier]].   Thus the [[delusion]] is not the '"illness' " of [[paranoia]] itself, but rather, the [[paranoiac]]'s attempt to heal himself, to pull himself out of the breakdown of the [[symbolic|symbolic universe]] universe by means of a [[substitute formation]].

<blockquote>"What we take to be the pathological production, the delusional formation, is in reality the attempt at recovery, the reconstruction."<ref>{{F}} "[[Works of Sigmund Freud|Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)]], " 1911c: [[SE ]] XII, 71</ref></blockquote>

[[Lacan]] emphasizes -- insists on -- the significance ==Other 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> ---Other==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.