A delusion of reference is one in which the deluded individual believes himself an object of written, spoken, or implied comment.
Example: The actors on the stage are directing their remarks directly against the victim in the box.
A shut-in personality is one that habitually responds inadequately to normal social appeal.
Sense of unreality is one of the commonest psychic alterations through which customary sensation states are displaced by unnatural and usually distressing ones.
| Examples: | The breakfast table appears undefinably altered. |
|---|---|
| Laughter is accompanied by strange, rather than by normal, sensations. |
Morbid inhibition is an abnormal, negative activity of the will.
Sometimes a patient will try pitifully to express some thought or feeling; the desire to explain is there, but will is blocked in action. Or the patient attempts to dress, makes repeated new beginnings, but cannot succeed. We say, “He is inhibited.”
An obsession is an idea which morbidly dominates the mind, constantly suggesting irrational action.
Obsessed patients may consistently step in such a way as to avoid the juncture of the flagstones on the pavement; may insist on removing their shoes in church; may hail each person met on the street and tap him on the arm; may refuse to ever leave the house without an open umbrella; or may try to attack every man they see, not because they want to hurt or kill, but because they are obsessed to the performance of the action.
A tic is a useless, habitual spasm of a muscle imitating a once purposeful action.