Department of Psychiatry, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.
Research Department, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.
Ir J Psychol Med. 2022 Jun;39(2):207-222. doi: 10.1017/ipm.2021.31. Epub 2021 May 10.
Hallucinations and delusions that occur in the absence of a psychotic disorder are common in children and adolescents. Longitudinal phenomenological studies exploring these experiences are notably lacking. The objective of the current paper was to explore the phenomenology and characteristics of hallucinations and delusions from early adolescence to early adulthood.
Participants were 17 young people aged 18-21 years from the general population, all of whom had a history of childhood hallucinations and/or delusions. Longitudinal data on the phenomenological characteristics and attributions of reported hallucinatory and delusional phenomena spanning nine years were explored using content analysis.
Hallucinatory and delusional phenomena were transient for two-thirds of the sample. The remaining one-third reported reoccurring hallucinatory and delusional phenomena into early adulthood. In those, two typologies were identified: (1) Paranormal typology and (2) Pathological typology. The former was characterised by hallucinatory and delusional phenomena that were exclusively grounded in subcultural paranormal or spiritual belief systems and not a source of distress. The latter was characterised by delusion-like beliefs that were enmeshed with individuals' mood states and a source of distress. The perceived source, the subcultural context and how young people appraised and integrated their experiences differentiated the Paranormal and Pathological typologies.
Not all hallucinatory and delusion-like experiences are psychotic-like in nature. To reliably differentiate between pathological and non-pathological hallucinations and delusions, assessments need to explore factors including the phenomenology of individuals' experiences, how people make sense and appraise them, and the subcultural contexts within which they are experienced.
在不存在精神障碍的情况下出现的幻觉和妄想在儿童和青少年中很常见。探索这些经历的纵向现象学研究明显缺乏。本文的目的是探讨从青少年早期到成年早期的幻觉和妄想的现象学和特征。
参与者是来自普通人群的 17 名 18-21 岁的年轻人，他们都有儿童时期幻觉和/或妄想的病史。使用内容分析探讨了跨越九年的报告幻觉和妄想现象的现象学特征和归因的纵向数据。
三分之二的样本的幻觉和妄想现象是短暂的。其余三分之一的人报告在成年早期再次出现幻觉和妄想现象。在这些人中，确定了两种类型：（1）超自然类型和（2）病理类型。前者的特点是幻觉和妄想现象仅基于亚文化超自然或精神信仰体系，而不是痛苦的来源。后者的特点是类似妄想的信念与个体的情绪状态交织在一起，是痛苦的来源。感知到的来源、亚文化背景以及年轻人如何评价和整合他们的经验区分了超自然和病理类型。
并非所有幻觉和妄想样体验都是精神病样的。为了可靠地区分病理性和非病理性幻觉和妄想，评估需要探讨包括个体体验的现象学、人们如何理解和评价他们以及他们所经历的亚文化背景在内的因素。
