Safety behaviours in persecutory delusions

Jolliffe, Kim V (2004) Safety behaviours in persecutory delusions. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

Persecutory delusions refer to believing one is being ‘tormented, followed, tricked, spied on or subjected to ridicule’ (Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (4^th Edition), p. 275, American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Strauss (1969) first suggested viewing persecutory delusions on a continuum with normal functioning and this initiated psychological explanations, starting with the theory that delusions resulted from applying normal cognitive mechanisms to explain anomalous experiences (Maher, 1974; 1988). The literature review considers cognitive models of the last 20 years which provide a range of explanations for the formation and maintenance of persecutory delusions. Models include theories of disruptive reasoning styles, attributional biases and disturbances in metacognitive processes. More recently, researchers have drawn directly from the literature base on emotions. The most recent model being by Freeman, Garety, Kuipers, Fowler, and Bebbington (2002) which is multi-factorial and incorporates a number of ideas from other theories. The authors propose that anxiety plays a central role in persecutory delusions and suggest that they are maintained through the use of safety behaviours preventing disconfirmatory evidence being processed. The empirical paper reports a study which tested the hypothesis that individuals with persecutory delusions and individuals with anxiety disorders use safety behaviours in a similar fashion. The findings supported those of Freeman, Garety, and Kuipers (2001). However, the evidence remains insufficient and the final recommendation is that applying knowledge of anxiety disorders to persecutory delusions should be approached cautiously.

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