AIM

To analyze psychopathological features of religious delusion of possession, determine the place of this phenomenon in psychotic syndrome, and identify the prognosis and dynamics of schizophrenia due to this disorder.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Thirteen patients with religious delusion of possession were examined in 1994-2016 by psychopathological and follow-up methods.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Hallucinations of a general feeling are the crucial psychopathological phenomenon of states with religious delusion of possession. Other delusional disorders (delusion of possession itself or metamorphosis - 'reincarnation in a demon', delusions of spoilage, witchcraft or hypochondriacal delusion) and delusional behavior (special forms of defense), haptic, olfactory hallucinations, and affective (depressive) disorders, suicidal activity are connected with this phenomena. Disease course is either continuous or attack-like. The type of disease course in most cases is complied with the development of stereotype of paranoid schizophrenia. A characteristic feature of disease was the combination of psychopathological disorders, reflecting the continuous nature of the endogenous disease (interpretive delusions, overvalued religious constructions) with disorders, that are more representative for the paroxysmal course (the phenomena of acute sensual delusions, expressed affective disorders), at the manifest stage of the disease. However, in most cases, unlike the classical hallucinatory type of paranoid schizophrenia, the disease began with circular bipolar affective disorders. In most cases, outcome of a manifesting psychosis is unfavorable.