Everything in its right place: a case report of reduplicative paramnesia with therapeutic and theoretical considerations.

Introductions: Reduplicative paramnesia (RP) is a rare and poorly understood phenomenon in which a person believes the place they are in has been replicated and exists in two places at once. There is minimal extant theoretical work addressing possible cognitive mechanisms subtending RP.Method: We present a new case of RP and discuss the therapeutic and theoretical implications of this case for the management and understanding of this phenomenon. Using the hypothetico-deductive approach to a neuropsychological case, we examine the phenomenon in the light of one and two-factor approaches to understanding the genesis of delusions.Results: The individual discussed in this case showed some evidence of relatively efficient incorporation of new evidence (belief updating) despite concurrently maintaining a delusional belief system.Conclusion: This case raises novel challenges for the two-factor account of neurological delusions.

Thinking about hallucinations: why philosophy matters.

Introduction: Hallucinations research is increasingly incorporating philosophy or the work of philosophically trained individuals. We present three different ways in which this is successfully implemented to the enhancement of knowledge and understanding of hallucinations and related phenomena.Method: We review contributions from phenomenology, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of science and psychiatry.Results: We demonstrate that these areas of philosophy make significant contributions to hallucinations research. Phenomenology gives us a sophisticated and critical understanding of the lived experience of hallucinations. Philosophy of cognitive science enables big-picture theorising and synthesis of ideas, as well as a critical engagement with new paradigms. Philosophy of science and psychiatry raises valuable and theoretically informed questions about diagnosis and categorisation.Conclusions: These contributions reflect both the methodological variety within philosophy and its relevance to the hallucinations researcher.

Commentary. Freud in the stroke ward: psychodynamic theory for stroke rehabilitation professionals.

BACKGROUND: Despite the increase in the number of clinical psychologists contributing to stroke care, the psychosocial aspects of rehabilitation will of necessity continue to be addressed by other rehabilitation professionals The clinical psychology of stroke rehabilitation is a growing field, with an extant literature reflecting different theoretical schools of psychotherapy. Psychoanalytic ideas have begun to enter the practice of neurorehabilitation, but with so far little written about stroke specifically. METHOD: In this commentary, I provide a brief overview of central themes in psychoanalytic theory, and link them to stroke rehabilitation using clinical vignettes. RESULTS & CONCLUSION: I argue that, by bearing strong feelings; attending to multiple communicative channels; considering transference and countertransference; and accepting more fully the pessimistic and despairing aspects of our patients' experiences, we can become more psychologically effective rehabilitation professionals.

Making up symptoms: psychic indeterminacy and the construction of psychotic phenomena.

SummaryPsychotic phenomena include a far wider range of experiences than is captured by the brief descriptions offered in contemporary diagnostic guides. Given the richness of historical clinical phenomenology, what can account for the recent ascendancy of relatively impoverished descriptions of psychosis? One possible explanation is provided by Hacking's notion of dynamic nominalism, where human categories change over time in tandem with those who they classify. But although dynamic nominalism makes sense of changes in behaviour, it fails to account for change at the level of subjective experience. In this paper, psychotic symptoms are addressed in the light of the indeterminacy of subjective mental content. A naïve-introspectionist approach to mental symptoms assumes that, notwithstanding practical difficulties, such symptoms are reliably describable in principle. Contemporary philosophy of mind challenges this assumption. Lighting upon a verbal description for ineffable phenomena changes their nature, resolving them into new forms.Declaration of interestNone.