title: What is a'mood-congruent' delusion? History and conceptual problems.
abstract: This article investigates the history of the concept of mood-congruent delusions and the problems accompanying this concept. In the late nineteenth century, there were conflicting views regarding the relationship between the contents of an individual's delusional thought and his/her affective state. The differentiation between delusion-like ideas secondary to affective state and incomprehensible primary delusions was introduced in the early twentieth century; this differentiation is the origin of the present-day distinction between mood-congruent and -incongruent delusions. Although the themes of delusions are clearly described in the operational diagnostic criteria for mood-congruent psychotic symptoms, the concept of mood congruence inevitably involves ambiguity. This article argues that a dilemma between reliability and validity emerges when diagnosing mood-congruent (and -incongruent) psychotic symptoms.
authors: Department of Psychiatry,Toranomon Branch Hospital, 1-3-1 Kajigaya,Takatsu-ku, Kawasaki City, Kanagawa 213-8587, Japan. tkumazak-tky@umin.ac.jp
authors: Tsutomu
authors: T
authors: Kumazaki
mesh_terms: D003702:Delusions / Q000266:history*; D005060:Europe; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States