"Isn't similar to the definition of a paranoid delusion?"
Has to be close, though technically, psychiatry seems to have classed believers as well.
Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness — called a “psychosis”— in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, which are unshakable beliefs in something untrue. People with delusional disorder experience non-bizarre delusions, which involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve the misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences. In reality, however, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated.
People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function quite normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner. This is unlike people with other psychotic disorders, who also might have delusions as a symptom of their disorder. In some cases, however, people with delusional disorder might become so preoccupied with their delusions that their lives are disrupted.
Although delusions might be a symptom of more common disorders, such as schizophrenia .. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4568-schizophrenia , delusional disorder itself is rather rare. Delusional disorder most often occurs in middle to late life.
What are the types of delusional disorder?
There are different types of delusional disorder based on the main theme of the delusions experienced. The types of delusional disorder include:
* Erotomanic. Someone with this type of delusional disorder believes that another person, often someone important or famous, is in love with him or her. The person might attempt to contact the object of the delusion, and stalking behavior is not uncommon.
* Grandiose. A person with this type of delusional disorder has an over-inflated sense of worth, power, knowledge, or identity. The person might believe he or she has a great talent or has made an important discovery.
* Jealous. A person with this type of delusional disorder believes that his or her spouse or sexual partner is unfaithful.
* Persecutory. People with this type of delusional disorder believe that they (or someone close to them) are being mistreated, or that someone is spying on them or planning to harm them. It is not uncommon for people with this type of delusional disorder to make repeated complaints to legal authorities.
* Somatic. A person with this type of delusional disorder believes that he or she has a physical defect or medical problem.
* Mixed. People with this type of delusional disorder have two or more of the types of delusions listed above.
This psychiatrist says no Faith is not a delusion.
Is Faith Delusion?
Professor Andrew Sims
It has been claimed that God is a delusion. I plan to examine that proposition from the standpoint of psychopathology. Delusion has now become a psychiatric word. Although in the past, the word delusion could refer to being fooled or cheated 1, in modern speech it always implies a suspicion of psychiatric illness. It has been appropriated by psychiatry and invariably implies a psychiatric diagnosis. If I am deluded, then I am necessarily mentally ill. In English law, delusion has been the cardinal feature of insanity for the last 200 years 2. It is a mitigating circumstance and can convey diminished responsibility. It is, therefore, within our professional competence as psychiatrists to say what is, and is not, delusion.
I have had the temerity to entitle this, ‘Is faith delusion?’ as if I could answer that question for all faiths and, therefore, know about all religions and philosophies. Of course, this is not so, but there is a dilemma here; the person who can state, objectively, ‘religion is, or says...’ , in doing so, puts himself outside religion, and all religion, each faith, can only be truly known from inside. I therefore hope that the disadvantage of not being able to speak for all religions is outweighed by knowing well the subjective experience of one type of believer.
Are all people with religious belief, a priori, suffering from mental illness? Sigmund Freud in 'Moses and Monotheism’ stated that belief in a single God is delusional 3. His contemporary, William James, was somewhat more circumspect and considered that spiritual and psychotic experiences were broadly distinguishable
In that article in also states that believers are generally happier, more balanced all that than are non-believers. And that since believe is the norm they are not suffering from a psychiatric disorder.
So it seems technically people of faith are not mentally ill. Technically.
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