HALLUCINATORY CONFUSION

A term introduced in or shortly before 1894 by the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) to denote a variant of the so-called defence neuro-psychosis in which an unbearable idea becomes detached from the ego and is subsequently averted through a flight into * hallucinosis. Freud gives the example of a young woman whose rejection by a man with whom she had fallen in love, and with whom she was nevertheless frequently confronted, turned from denial of the situation into the delusional conviction that the man would yet come to return her affection, and finally into her hearing the man's hallucinated voice. As Freud asserts, "The fact to which I now wish to call attention is that the content of such an hallucinatory psychosis consists precisely in the accentuation of the very idea which was first threatened by the experience occasioning the outbreak of the illness. One is therefore justified in saying that the ego has averted the unbearable idea by a flight into psychosis." Hallucinatory confusion can be classified as a type of *psychogenic hallucination. Conceptually, it is related to the notion of *conversive hallucination.

Freud, S. (1894).The defence neuro-psychoses.In:Sigmund Freud. Collected papers. Volume I. (1959). Translated by Rickman, J. Edited by Jones, E. New York, NY: Basic Books.