Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Past Issues
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Print Subscriptions
  • About
    • About the Journal
    • About the Academy
    • Editorial Board
  • Feedback
  • Alerts
  • AAPL

User menu

  • Alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
  • AAPL
  • Alerts
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Past Issues
  • Info for
    • Authors
    • Print Subscriptions
  • About
    • About the Journal
    • About the Academy
    • Editorial Board
  • Feedback
  • Alerts
Research ArticleRegular Articles

Integrating Non-Psychiatric Models of Delusion-Like Beliefs into Forensic Psychiatric Assessment

Joseph M. Pierre
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online June 2019, 47 (2) 171-179; DOI: https://doi.org/10.29158/JAAPL.003833-19
Joseph M. Pierre
Dr. Pierre is Chief, Hospital Psychiatry Division, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, and Health Sciences Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California.
MD
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

In both clinical and forensic psychiatry, it can often be difficult to distinguish delusions from normal beliefs. The categorical approach of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) leaves few options to describe intermediate delusion-like beliefs (DLBs). Neurocognitive models offer an alternative view of DLBs as existing on a continuum that can be quantified based on dimensions of severity as well as underlying cognitive biases. The Internet provides broadened access to putative evidence for diverse beliefs, with filter bubbles and echo chambers that can amplify confirmation bias and strengthen conviction. It is therefore much easier now for fringe beliefs to be shared and much less clear when they should be considered delusional. To place DLBs into a forensically relevant framework, psychiatric expert witnesses should adopt a broad biopsychosocial understanding of belief formation and maintenance that integrates clinical expertise with knowledge about dimensional aspects of delusions, cognitive biases, and the processing of online misinformation. The unavoidable conclusion that normal thinking is replete with cognitive biases and misbeliefs challenges the legal concept of mens rea that forms the foundation of a retributivist American justice system.

Because beliefs seem to shape our expectations and guide our behavior, forensic experts are often called upon to assess them as underlying motivations for criminal acts. The main purpose of such psychiatric evaluation is to determine whether beliefs are symptomatic of mental illness, with implications for culpability and mens rea. Assessing the pathological nature of beliefs is fraught with challenges, however, including the limited options in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) for the characterization of delusion-like beliefs (DLBs), the expanded cultural sanctioning of fringe beliefs in the age of the Internet, and the potentially conflicting agendas of clinical and forensic psychiatric evaluation.

Delusions and DLBs in the DSM

Since publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-III), psychiatric diagnosis has been based on categorical disorders defined by symptom criteria. Symptoms themselves are discussed throughout the subsequent editions of the DSM, with brief definitions listed in its glossary. Tethered to the DSM, both clinicians and forensic experts are limited to a narrow differential diagnosis of pathological beliefs that mostly hinges on the dichotomous evaluation of whether a belief is delusional.

Informed by the work of Karl Jaspers, the DSM has maintained throughout its revisions a basic definition of delusions as fixed, false beliefs.1,2 When the more detailed DSM definitions have been examined more closely, they have been criticized on various grounds,1,3,4 including their problematic application to forensic psychiatry.5 Foundationally, the DSM defines delusions as beliefs, although some critics have disagreed with this premise,6 and belief itself remains undefined in psychiatry.

Much of the practical difficulty with evaluating delusions arises when they are shared. Following Jaspers' conceptualization of delusions as impossible and unshareable,2,5 delusions have been distinguished from shared and culturally sanctioned beliefs since the DSM-III-R. Serial versions of “shared psychotic disorder” were included from DSM-III to DSM-IV as a separate option to account for shared delusions, but this diagnostic category was eliminated in DSM-5. Earlier DSM definitions equated the impossibility of delusional beliefs with the term “bizarre.” Due to the inability to prove some beliefs false and poor inter-rater reliability for what is possible or impossible,7,8 however, the diagnostic relevance of bizarre delusions was also abandoned in DSM-5. Clinicians and forensic evaluators are therefore left with few options to differentiate delusions from religious and political beliefs that are shared within subcultures but are extreme, functionally impairing, or associated with criminal behavior.9,10

Although not specifically listed as a symptom of any particular mental disorder, the term “overvalued idea” was first included in DSM-III-R to describe beliefs held with less than delusional conviction. It remains in the glossary of DSM-5, although previous reference to overvalued ideas as difficult to distinguish from delusions has been replaced with the term “strongly held idea” (Ref. 11, p 87). As it has with delusions, the DSM has always distinguished overvalued ideas from shared cultural and subcultural beliefs, despite the fact that both Carl Wernicke, the term's originator, and Jaspers both regarded overvalued ideas as potentially shareable, not unlike political and religious beliefs.10,12 Recognizing this diagnostic straightjacket, some authors have recently proposed the new term “extreme overvalued belief” to account for shared, non-delusional beliefs that have confounded forensic evaluations of terrorist crimes.10,13

Non-Psychiatric Models of DLBs

The idea that beliefs can be pathological is a core principle in psychiatric nosology, where the categorical definition of delusion conversely implies that normal, non-delusional beliefs are rational and evidence-based. As a discipline that extends its focus beyond the pathological, psychology offers the contrasting, dimensional perspective that normal and pathological beliefs exist on a continuum, with normal beliefs not as rational or evidence-based as they might seem.

DLBs as Cognitive Distortions

Cognitive distortions have been a foundational concept of cognitive behavioral therapy since Aaron Beck introduced the term in the 1960s. Beck reported that patients with depression had “cognitions,” or thoughts, with “systematic deviations from realistic and logical thinking” (Ref. 14, p 331) and “varying degrees of distortion of reality” (Ref. 14, p 328) that were “similar to [those] described in studies of schizophrenia” and “may be common to all types of psychopathology” (Ref. 14, p 331). While definitions vary, cognitive distortions can be thought of as errors in cognitive content and information processing15 or, more simply, as errors of belief and how we arrive at and maintain them. Unlike the categorical definitions of DLBs in the DSM, cognitive distortions refer to underlying mechanisms of belief formation within a larger neurocognitive model that seeks to account for a continuum of beliefs spanning the normal to the delusional.16 Cognitive distortions have been conceptualized as relevant to not only psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and depression, but also to the understanding of problem behaviors such as pathological gambling17 and child molestation.15,18,19

Conceptualizing beliefs within the framework of cognitive psychology illustrated above results in the alternative view that DLBs are more accurately modeled not as categorically or qualitatively different types of belief, but rather as quantitative variants across belief dimensions such as conviction, preoccupation, and distress.9,20,–,22 A large body of research now supports the idea that delusional thinking can also be explained by the presence of specific cognitive biases including the “jumping to conclusions” bias, attributional biases, theory of mind deficits, and belief inflexibility.23,–,27 Within this conceptual framework, beliefs themselves are not pathological so much as are the cognitive mechanisms that underlie their formation.

Although one of the main purposes of the DSM has been to assist clinicians in distinguishing mental health from mental illness,28,29 there is now ample evidence to support the idea that psychosis is distributed along a continuum that includes individuals with and without mental illness.30,–,33 The rate of delusions and DLBs detected in surveys of general population samples varies broadly from 1.3 to 91 percent,34,–,37 including 47 percent reporting paranoid ideation38 and 66–79 percent endorsing paranormal beliefs.37,39 In the DSM, diagnostic options to account for the grey areas of a psychotic continuum, where those with less than full-blown psychotic symptoms exist, include the “cluster A” personality disorders (e.g., schizotypal, paranoid, and schizoid), the wastebasket category “psychosis, not otherwise specified (NOS)” (renamed “unspecified schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorder” in DSM-5), and “attenuated psychosis syndrome” (listed for the first time in DSM-5 as a condition for further study). In psychology, the psychotic spectrum is represented by the concept of “psychosis proneness” and the cognitive biases that underlie this trait. As with delusions themselves, delusion proneness has been linked to the jumping-to-conclusions reasoning style,40,–,42 self-serving bias,43 and belief-bias attributions.44

Normal Misbelief and Conspiracy Theories

Looking beyond the psychotic spectrum, cognitive psychology has devoted significant attention to the cognitive biases that underlie normal belief. Cognitive distortions such as all-or-none thinking, overgeneralization, jumping to conclusions, magnification and minimization, and personalization are targets of cognitive behavioral therapy in the treatment of depression, but they are also prevalent in those without mental illness.45 Tversky and Kahneman famously proposed that normal people make judgments based on information processing shortcuts or “heuristics” that are subject to bias and error.46 This work paved the way for subsequent research that has now firmly established the existence of “cognitive illusions” that amount to myriad normal misbeliefs.47–48 Although many such illusions are thought to be positive, conferring potential evolutionary advantage by enhancing psychological well-being (e.g., unwarranted optimism, unrealistically positive self-appraisals, illusions of control), others confound evolutionary explanation through their potential to impair functioning.48,–,51 For example, cognitive biases such as confirmation bias,52 cognitive dissonance,53 and the Dunning-Kruger effect54 (whereby overconfidence in personal knowledge is greatest among those with the lowest actual knowledge) can interfere with knowledge acquisition and evidence appraisal, giving rise to false beliefs. According to error-management theory, the systematic cognitive biases that govern information processing may result in misbeliefs that are at odds with reality but remain adaptive overall.49,51,55,56 Still, it is hard to deny that cognitive biases and their resulting misbeliefs can sometimes have significant negative effects on societal functioning. Relevant to forensics, implicit bias is associated with racially biased policing57 and criminal sentencing,58 and memory biases are known to contribute to the malleability and fallibility of eye-witness accounts.59

The idea that cognitive biases may be perpetuated through evolutionary advantage but can be problematic in modern social functioning might help explain phenomena like conspiracy theories.60 Belief in conspiracy theories has been correlated with higher levels of normally distributed psychological traits including certain attribution and perceptual biases61,–,63; conjunction fallacies64; need for certainty, cognitive closure, and uniqueness65; and with schizotypy in general.66 Research to date indicates, however, that conspiracy beliefs are otherwise normal60; a nationally representative survey found that half of the U.S. population believes in at least one conspiracy theory.67 While there is little evidence to support that belief in conspiracy theories is necessarily associated with functional impairment, without a doubt some conspiracy theorists find their way into the legal system. One illustration is the 2016 case of an individual who brought a semi-automatic rifle into a pizzeria to “self-investigate” whether it was housing a child sex-trafficking ring affiliated with Hillary Clinton.68,69 On a larger scale, it has been argued that conspiracy theories involving anti-science beliefs can have a profoundly negative impact on public health (e.g., anti-vaxxers) and environmental policy (e.g., climate-change deniers).70,71

DLBs in the Internet Era

An alternate view of subculturally shared religious, political, and conspiracy beliefs is that they are best understood as memes. The term meme was originally coined by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to describe self-perpetuating cultural entities, including ideas and beliefs.72 It has been suggested that memes, or meme complexes (“memeplexes”), can account for popular myths such as religious beliefs and folk beliefs in the soul or in a conscious self that directs our actions.73 More recently, the concept of an Internet meme has been widely adopted to describe memes that are propagated via the Internet. The shareability of DLBs is vital to their proper classification, but the Internet now makes sharing beliefs possible in a way that Jaspers and the authors of the DSM before DSM-5 could never have anticipated.

The online shareability of otherwise unshareable beliefs can occur through large-scale access to millions of potential confederates whose agreement supplies the putative evidence for even the most fringe beliefs, along with digital biases programmed into search engines and social media sites that can shape, strengthen, and propagate beliefs. The Internet provides rapid and historically unprecedented access to information, but also to misinformation, opinions portrayed as facts, and deliberate hoaxes (e.g., “trolling”) that can plant the initial seeds of false belief. Recent research indicates that false news spreads faster and more extensively online than does true news.74 While divulging unconventional beliefs in small social circles is likely to elicit opposition, anonymous online users can gain immediate widespread access to potentially like-minded individuals with the press of a button. As with belief formation in general, the process of assessing the veracity of online information and finding support for unconventional beliefs is highly susceptible to confirmation bias, with Internet users selecting and sharing content that supports their preexisting beliefs while ignoring content that does not. This process is fueled by the aggregation of users into homogeneous user clusters or echo chambers, where exposure to opposing beliefs is limited.75 In addition, Internet machine-learning algorithms geared toward the personalization of content based on online preferences segregate information within “filter bubbles” that show us more of what we want to see.76 Meanwhile, when searching the Internet for explanatory knowledge, access to information can give the false impression of personal understanding of that information, solidifying beliefs without actually enhancing knowledge.77

Although recent studies suggest that the influence of echo chambers and filter bubbles on restricting exposure to diverse viewpoints has been overestimated,78,79 the Internet clearly has the potential to increase exposure to misinformation, grant greater access to others who might share unconventional beliefs, strengthen belief conviction in general, and result in group polarization around opposing beliefs, representing an enhanced confirmation bias. At the very least, the potential effects of the Internet illustrate how the formation and maintenance of beliefs and DLBs do not occur exclusively within the vacuum of an individual's mind, but are influenced by social forces, digital or otherwise. As an example, Morgellons Syndrome is generally regarded as a variant of delusional parasitosis that has been propagated through the Internet,80 although it has also been modeled by some investigators as a true dermatologic disease.81 If it does represent a form of delusional disorder, it confounds the DSM definition of delusions as unshared beliefs and might be better understood as an Internet meme.82

Characterizing DLBs that have been propagated online has been integral to the litigation of so-called “sovereign citizens” who have been charged with shirking the law based on a variety of false beliefs about the U.S. government, most notably the unconstitutionality of income tax. While initial defense strategies claimed incompetence to stand trial due to apparent delusional thinking and idiosyncratic pseudolegal rhetoric, the shared nature of the sovereign-citizen doctrine and its widespread online availability has rendered that defense fruitless.83,84A potentially successful defense became possible, however, following the 1991 Supreme Court ruling in Cheek v. United States85 that a “genuine, good faith belief” that one is not violating federal tax law can be used as evidence against the Internal Revenue Service tax code requirement of “willfulness” for mens rea.86 This so-called Cheek defense allows that good faith ignorance of the law could be claimed for sovereign citizens who are tax deniers, based on belief in online misinformation presented as fact, but not for tax protestors who violate known law based on claims of unconstitutionality. The litigation of sovereign citizen cases may therefore hinge upon the precise categorization of misbeliefs by a psychiatrist, although expert witnesses must be careful to avoid violating Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b), which prohibits providing an opinion about “whether the defendant did or did not have a mental state or condition that constitutes an element of the crime charged or of a defense.”87 This provides something of a tightrope to navigate for forensic experts who are asked to provide a psychiatric opinion of a tax denier's beliefs but cannot explicitly opine as to whether their beliefs and corresponding actions represented “good faith.”

Competing Clinical and Forensic Utilities

It has been argued that the borders of mental illness are best understood as dimensionally fluid guideposts rather than immutable categorical boundaries.29,88,89 Although continuum models of psychiatric disorders and symptoms might better reflect reality, the main purpose of the DSM has been to increase diagnostic reliability and to guide treatment, where clinical decision-making favors firm boundaries. With clinical utility as a guiding principle for DSM revisions, a categorical approach has been maintained with mental disorders defined as syndromes based on symptom criteria. Nonetheless, navigating the ambiguity of psychiatric diagnosis to make clinical decisions is routine in psychiatry, with the DSM intentionally leaving ample room for clinical judgment.

In forensic work, with the inherent opposition between prosecution and defense, ambiguity is less well tolerated and often results in two conflicting expert opinions. Although forensic psychiatry prefers “crisp” boundaries to define “legal insanity,”90 the threshold to define mental disorder when applying psychiatric diagnosis to judgments of culpability might be different than it is in clinical practice, where the bar is often lowered to maximize help for treatment-seeking individuals.29,88,89 This mismatch in defining “caseness” illustrates how the use of the DSM in different settings can have competing contextual utilities and why the rules of diagnosis set forth in the DSM make an “imperfect fit” (Ref. 11, p 25) with forensic questions about involuntary treatment, issues of capacity and competency, evaluations of moral and legal responsibility, and criminal sentencing.29,89,91,92 This point is underscored in the “Cautionary Statement for Forensic Use” chapter in DSM-5.11 In clinical work, distinctions between delusions and other DLBs are intended to guide evidence-based intervention, not to provide evidence for an insanity defense.

Conflicts between the competing contextual utilities of clinical and forensic psychiatry have been well illustrated in recent years by the legal application of a DSM paraphilia diagnosis (especially pedophilia and the unofficial categories “paraphilia NOS, nonconsent” and “paraphilia NOS, hebephilia”) to mandate indefinite civil commitments for convicted sexually violent offenders upon completion of their prison sentences.92,–,94 In doing so, the courts have equated DSM diagnosis with volitional impairment or loss of control, although that is not a defining feature of paraphilia in DSM-IV or paraphilic disorders in DSM-5.92,95 This intentional conflation has been rationalized based on a goal of protecting the public from sexually violent predators, at the expense of their civil rights of due process through a form of double jeopardy.96 It has occurred despite explicit statements in DSM-IV and DSM-5 cautioning against conflating psychiatric diagnosis (including specific reference to pedophilia) with legal definitions of mental disorder or any implications about control over behavior.11

Some authors have argued that paraphilias should not be considered mental disorders at all97 and that pedophilia, not unlike homosexuality, might be better characterized as a sexual orientation.98,–,100 Such a proposition would shift pedophilic behavior into the same category as rape, as an illegal and morally objectionable act by Western standards, but one not to be confused with evidence per se of a mental disorder. As noted earlier, however, child molestation has also been modeled in cognitive terms, with cognitive distortions and cognitive dissonance providing a framework to understand why some people violate cultural taboos and laws.15,19 According to this model, child molesters rationalize or excuse their behavior based on core misbeliefs that are at odds with cultural norms. Although this view has gained a wide following and forms the basis of many existing interventions for sexual offenders, “cognitive distortion” in this context has also been criticized as a wastebasket term to describe a variety of beliefs, justifications, perceptions, excuses, defenses, rationalizations, denials, and minimizations in isolation of external forces governing belief formation.101,102

Ultimately then, forensic experts face a conundrum when attempting to explain abnormal and sometimes criminal behavior in pathological terms (e.g., cognitive distortions, overvalued ideas, etc.) when there is no clear mental disorder to speak of. Conversely, trying to account for dysfunctional behavior by framing unconventional beliefs in cognitive terms can lead one down a slippery slope to conclude that everyone has pathological beliefs, that belief formation occurs largely through unconscious processes, and that free will and moral responsibility do not exist.103 Those would be inconvenient truths for the existing American criminal justice system.

Integration Through “Cognitive Psychiatry”

Within the contextual utility of diagnosis in forensic psychiatry, a major shortcoming of categorical definitions of DLBs is that they reveal little to juries about how it is possible for non-psychotic individuals to hold unconventional beliefs and sometimes act on them in ways that get them into legal trouble. To tell that story, forensic experts must draw upon not only knowledge of categorical DSM diagnoses and DLB definitions, but clinical experience and biopsychosocial formulations of the defendant in question. In the era of the Internet, expertise regarding how beliefs are shaped and sustained by dynamics within groups ranging in size from dyads (e.g., folie á deux) to larger, closed groups (e.g., cults) must now include knowledge of what leads people to form DLBs based on online evidence and to resist the correction of misinformation within filter bubbles and echo chambers.104,–,106

Supplementing that expertise with a cognitive perspective on individual belief acquisition and maintenance can help round out a holistic perspective, providing a means to characterize where a DLB might fall on a continuum without the necessity of pinpoint categorization. For example, it has been argued that religious delusions might be best distinguished from religious faith by quantifying them along dimensions of preoccupation, conviction, and distress rather than focusing on content or whether the beliefs are shared.9 This same approach can be extended to the range of DLBs in general, regardless of theme. A number of validated scales can be useful in such assessment, including the Peters et al. Delusional Inventory,21 the Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale,107 and the Conviction of Delusional Beliefs Scale.108 Cognitive models of delusion can also provide a framework to account for how individuals adopt and maintain unconventional beliefs. The “two-deficit” or “two-factor” model suggests that delusions and DLBs can arise from anomalous perceptual, emotional, or autonomic experiences along with faults of cognitive processing, whether pathological or not (e.g., cognitive biases or “doxastic inhibitory failures”).16,24,109 Psychiatrists with clinical experience should already be well-versed in the assessment of anomalous experiences (e.g., hallucinations, misidentification syndromes, body-image distortions, etc.) but might be less familiar with cognitive biases. In addition to collaboration with a cognitive psychologist, tools like the Cognitive Biases Questionnaire for Psychosis could be helpful in assessing how an individual's cognitive biases affect their beliefs.110 Both forensic expertise and psychometric scales can likewise assist in the detection of malingering, when endorsement of anomalous experiences and belief conviction are being simulated.111

DLBs and Mens Rea

It has been argued that the insanity defense arose as a necessary corollary to a criminal justice system based on retribution and punishment rather than as a humanitarian protection for the mentally ill.112 Psychiatric definitions of psychosis, delusional thinking, or cognitive deficits are relevant to, but altogether distinct from, definitions of legal insanity that are rooted in historical notions and folk intuitions about moral responsibility. In most U.S. states, not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) pleas therefore require not only negation of mens rea, but impairment of moral reasoning (i.e., knowing right versus wrong per M'Naughten113) or loss of control per the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code.114 Aside from the most clear-cut examples of idiosyncratic and self-referential delusional thinking, other DLBs and shared delusions in particular have generally not been considered adequate to demonstrate diminished capacity.83,115,116 Within forensic psychiatry, it seems that the proposal of terms like “extreme overvalued beliefs” has been in the service of carving out a new category to explain unusual beliefs and morally outrageous behavior while ensuring that culpability remains intact.

The 1954 Durham Rule117 that all but equated the presence of relevant delusions with diminished capacity has since been abandoned, but delusions and DLBs remain highly pertinent to judgments of mens rea, not only for NGRI pleas but for evaluations of competency to stand trial, plea bargaining, and sentencing.118 Although the opinion of psychiatric experts can inform such judgments, various laws have limited their scope (e.g., State v. Mott,119 California Penal Code Section 28,120 Federal Rule of Evidence 704(b),87 etc.) with rulings ultimately left for judges and juries to decide based on their own variably liberal or conservative perspectives on retributive justice and evolving case law.121

The modeling of delusions, DLBs, and even normal beliefs as qualitative and quantitative variants with underlying cognitive biases opens the door to the negation of mens rea not only for individuals, but as a valid legal concept. This slippery-slope argument dovetails with broader neurocognitive theories positing that consciousness and the illusion of free will are but epiphenomena of the unconscious systems that actually govern human behavior.103,122 At first glance, such models might predict that “the present foundations of law and morality rooted in agentic personhood would collapse” (Ref. 123, p 1134), but on closer examination they might simply pave the way to replacing case-by-case evaluations of moral culpability with universal agentic responsibility.124 This model does not therefore threaten rule of law, but it may warrant a shift from a retributivist justice system to one based more upon consequentialist principles.103,125 In such a system, delusions and DLBs would be largely irrelevant to the determination of criminal culpability, but would be closely tied to pragmatic sentencing that might err on the side of greater access to psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation rather than punitive incarceration.

Conclusion

When asked if he were gay, the late free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor is said to have responded, “Do you think a three-letter word defines the complexity of my humanity? I avoid the trap of easy definition.”126 Given our limited understanding of the complexities of belief, it appears that DLBs likewise defy easy definition. Moving beyond the futility of further categorization, DLBs are better conceptualized as a quantifiable continuum in which their underlying cognitive mechanisms are not the exclusive domain of mental illness and instead extend well into normalcy. Although cognitive flexibility and, more specifically, belief flexibility would probably be a healthier mindset for optimal social functioning,127 this is not necessarily an attribute of normal human cognition where biases, motivated reasoning, and misbeliefs can reign supreme.37,40,49,128 This unavoidable conclusion helps to understand why seemingly normal people can hold unconventional beliefs that sometimes cause them to behave in very abnormal ways.

Working backward through the void of any universally accepted definition of belief in psychiatry, psychology, or philosophy, I propose that beliefs be defined as “cognitive representations of past, present, and future reality, encompassing our inner experiences, the world around us, and the world beyond.” From this foundation, forensic experts can then draw from non-psychiatric disciplines to adopt a more nuanced model of DLBs as biased cognitions, conspiracy theories, and Internet memes with common underlying cognitive mechanisms that might better inform legal proceedings.

Footnotes

  • Disclosures of financial or other potential conflicts of interest: None.

  • © 2019 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

References

  1. 1.↵
    1. Spitzer M
    : On defining delusions. Comp Psychiatry 31:377–97, 1990
    OpenUrl
  2. 2.↵
    1. Walker C
    : Delusion: what did Jaspers really say? Brit J Psychiatry 159(suppl 14):94–103, 1991
    OpenUrl
  3. 3.↵
    1. Berrios GE
    : Delusions as “wrong beliefs”: a conceptual history. Brit J Psychiatr 159(suppl 14):6–13, 1991
    OpenUrl
  4. 4.↵
    1. Leeser J,
    2. O'Donohue W
    : What is a delusion? Epistemological dimensions. J Abnorm Psychol 108:687–94, 1999
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  5. 5.↵
    1. Hoff P
    : Delusion in general and forensic psychiatry: historical and contemporary aspects. Behav Sci & L 24:241–55, 2006
    OpenUrl
  6. 6.↵
    1. Stephens GL,
    2. Graham G
    : Reconceiving delusion. Int Rev Psychiatry 16:236–41, 2004
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  7. 7.↵
    1. Bell V,
    2. Halligan PW,
    3. Ellis HD
    : Diagnosing delusions: a review of inter-rater reliability. Schizophr Res 86:76–77, 2006
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  8. 8.↵
    1. Cermolacce M,
    2. Sass L,
    3. Parnas J
    : What is bizarre in bizarre delusions? A critical review. Schizophr Bull 36:667–79, 2010
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  9. 9.↵
    1. Pierre JM
    : Faith or delusion: at the crossroads of religion and psychosis. J Psychiatr Pract 7:163–72, 2001
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  10. 10.↵
    1. Rahman T
    . Extreme overvalued beliefs: how violent extremist beliefs become “normalized.” Behav Sci 8:10, 2018
    OpenUrl
  11. 11.↵
    American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2013
  12. 12.↵
    1. McKenna PJ
    : Disorders with overvalued ideas. Brit J Psychiatr 145:579–85, 1984
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  13. 13.↵
    1. Rahman T,
    2. Resnick PJ,
    3. Harry B
    : Anders Breivik: extreme beliefs mistaken for psychosis. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 44:28–35, 2016
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  14. 14.↵
    1. Beck AT
    : Thinking and depression. I. Idiosyncratic content and cognitive distortions. Arch Gen Psychiatr 9:324–33, 1963
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  15. 15.↵
    1. Szumski F,
    2. Zielona-Jenek M
    : Child molesters' cognitive distortions. Conceptualizations of the term. Psychiatr Pol 50:1053–63, 2016
    OpenUrl
  16. 16.↵
    1. Connors MH,
    2. Halligan PW
    : A cognitive account of belief: a tentative roadmap. Front Psychol 5:1–14, 2015
    OpenUrl
  17. 17.↵
    1. Fortune EE,
    2. Goodie AS
    : Cognitive distortions as a component and treatment focus of pathological gambling: a review. Psychol Addict Behav 26:298–310, 2012
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  18. 18.↵
    1. Ward T,
    2. Hudson SM,
    3. Johnston L,
    4. Marshall WL
    : Cognitive distortions in sex offenders: an integrative review. Clin Psychol Rev 17:479–507, 1997
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  19. 19.↵
    1. Gannon TA,
    2. Polaschek DLL
    : Cognitive distortions in child molesters: a re-examination of theories and research. Clin Psychol Rev 26:1000–19, 2006
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  20. 20.↵
    1. Kendler KS,
    2. Glazer WM,
    3. Morgenstern H
    : Dimensions of delusional experience. Am J Psychiatry 140:466–69, 1983
    OpenUrlPubMed
  21. 21.↵
    1. Peters ER,
    2. Joseph SA,
    3. Garety PA
    : Measurement of delusional ideation in the normal population: introducing the PDI (Peters et al: Delusional Inventory). Schizophr Bull 25:553–76, 1999
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  22. 22.↵
    1. Lincoln TM
    : Relevant dimensions of delusions: continuing the continuum versus category debate. Schizophr Res 93:211–20, 2007
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  23. 23.↵
    1. Garety PA,
    2. Freeman D
    : Cognitive approaches to delusions: a critical review of theories and evidence. Brit J Clin Psychol 38:113–54, 1999
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  24. 24.↵
    1. Bell V,
    2. Halligan PW,
    3. Ellis HD
    : Explaining delusions: a cognitive perspective. Trends Cog Sci 10:219–26, 2006
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  25. 25.↵
    1. So SH,
    2. Tang V,
    3. Leung PW
    : Dimensions of delusions and attribution biases along the continuum of psychosis. PLoSONE 10(12):e0144558, 2015
    OpenUrl
  26. 26.↵
    1. Gawęda Ł,
    2. Staszkiewisc M,
    3. Balzan RP
    : The relationship between cognitive biases and psychological dimensions of delusions: the importance of jumping to conclusions. J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatr 56:51–56, 2017
    OpenUrl
  27. 27.↵
    1. Zhu C,
    2. Sun X,
    3. So SH
    : Associations between belief inflexibility and dimensions in delusions: a meta-analytic review of two approaches to assessing belief flexibility. Brit J Clin Psychol 57:59–81, 2018
    OpenUrl
  28. 28.↵
    1. Pierre JM
    : Deconstructing schizophrenia for the DSM-V: challenges for clinical and research agendas. Clin Schizophr Rel Psychosis 2:166–74, 2008
    OpenUrl
  29. 29.↵
    1. Pierre JM
    : The borders of mental disorder in psychiatry and the DSM: past, present, and future. J Psychiatr Pract 16:375–86, 2010
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  30. 30.↵
    1. Peters ER,
    2. Joseph SA,
    3. Garety PA
    : Measurement of delusional ideation in the normal population: introducing the PDI (Peters et al: Delusional Inventory). Schizophr Bull 25:553–76, 1999
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  31. 31.↵
    1. Strauss JS
    : Hallucinations and delusions as points on a continua function. Arch Gen Psychiatr 24:581–86, 1969
    OpenUrl
  32. 32.↵
    1. Verdoux H,
    2. van Os J
    : Psychotic symptoms in non-clinical populations and the continuum of psychosis. Schizophr Res 54:59–65, 2002
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  33. 33.↵
    1. Linscott RJ,
    2. van Os J
    : An updated and conservative systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiological evidence on psychotic experiences in children and adults: on the pathway from proneness to persistence to dimensional expression across mental disorders. Psychol Med 43:1133–49, 2013
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  34. 34.↵
    1. Verdoux H,
    2. Maurice-Tison S,
    3. Gay B,
    4. et al
    : A survey of delusional ideation in primary-care patients. Psychological Med 28:127–34, 1998
    OpenUrl
  35. 35.↵
    1. Rössler W,
    2. Riechler-Rössler A,
    3. Angst J,
    4. et al
    : Psychotic experiences in the general population: a twenty-year prospective community study. Schizophr Res 92:1–14, 2007
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  36. 36.↵
    1. McGrath JJ,
    2. Saha S,
    3. Al-Hamzawi A,
    4. et al
    : Psychotic experiences in the general population: a cross-national analysis based on 31261 respondents from 18 countries. JAMA Psychiatr 72:697–705, 2015
    OpenUrl
  37. 37.↵
    1. Pechey R,
    2. Halligan P
    : The prevalence of delusion-like beliefs relative to sociocultural beliefs in the general population. Psychopathol 44:106–15, 2011
    OpenUrl
  38. 38.↵
    1. Ellett L,
    2. Lopes B,
    3. Chadwick P
    : Paranoia in a nonclinical population of college students. J Nerv Ment Dis 191:425–30, 2003
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  39. 39.↵
    1. Ross CA,
    2. Joshi S
    : Paranormal experiences in the general population. J Nerv Ment Dis 180:357–61, 1992
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  40. 40.↵
    1. Freeman D,
    2. Pugh K,
    3. Garety P
    : Jumping to conclusions and paranoid ideation in the general population. Schizophr Res 102:354–60, 2008
    OpenUrl
  41. 41.↵
    1. Gawęda Ł,
    2. Prochwicz K
    : A comparison of cognitive biases between schizophrenia patients with delusions and healthy individuals with delusion-like experiences. Eur Psychiatr 30:943–49, 2015
    OpenUrl
  42. 42.↵
    1. van der Leer L,
    2. Hartig B,
    3. Goldmanis M
    : Delusion proneness and ‘jumping to conclusions’: relative and absolute effects. Psychol Med 45:1253–62, 2015
    OpenUrl
  43. 43.↵
    1. Ho-wai S,
    2. Tang V,
    3. Leung PW
    : Dimensions of delusions and attribution biases along the continuum of psychosis. PloS ONE 10:e0144558, 2015
    OpenUrl
  44. 44.↵
    1. Anandakumar T,
    2. Connaughton E,
    3. Coltheart M,
    4. et al
    : Belief-bias reasoning in the non-clinical delusion-prone individuals. J Behav Therapy Exp Psychiatr 56:71–78, 2017
    OpenUrl
  45. 45.↵
    1. Burns DD
    : Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. New York: Avon Books, 1980
  46. 46.↵
    1. Tversky A,
    2. Kahneman D
    : Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Science 185:1124–31, 1974
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  47. 47.↵
    1. Kahneman D,
    2. Tversky A
    : On the reality of cognitive illusions. Psychol Rev 103:582–91, 1996
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  48. 48.↵
    1. Taylor SW,
    2. Brown JD
    : Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health. Psycholog Bull 103:193–201, 1988
    OpenUrl
  49. 49.↵
    1. McKay RT,
    2. Dennett DC
    : The evolution of misbelief. Behavior Brain Sci 32:493–561, 2009
    OpenUrl
  50. 50.↵
    1. Haselton MG,
    2. Nettle D
    : The paranoid optimist: an integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases. Pers Soc Psychol Rev 10:47–66, 2006
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  51. 51.↵
    1. Yarritu I,
    2. Matute H,
    3. Luque D
    : The dark side of cognitive illusions: when an illusory belief interferes with the acquisition of evidence-based knowledge. Brit J Psychol 106:597–608, 2015
    OpenUrl
  52. 52.↵
    1. Nickerson RS
    : Confirmation bias: a ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Rev Gen Psychol 2:175–220, 1998
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  53. 53.↵
    1. Festinger L
    : Cognitive dissonance. Sci Amer 2017:93–107, 1962
    OpenUrl
  54. 54.↵
    1. Kruger J,
    2. Dunning D
    : Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. J Pers Soc Psychol 77:1121–34, 1999
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  55. 55.↵
    1. Haselton MG,
    2. Nettle D
    : The paranoid optimist: an integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases. Pers Socl Psychol Rev 10:47–66, 2006
    OpenUrl
  56. 56.↵
    1. Hilbert M
    : Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: how noisy information processing can bias human decision making. Psychol Bull 138:211–37, 2012
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  57. 57.↵
    1. Spencer KB,
    2. Charbonneau AK,
    3. Glaser J
    : Implicit bias and policing. Soc Pers Psychol Compass 10:50–63, 2016
    OpenUrl
  58. 58.↵
    1. Bennett MW
    : The implicit racial bias in sentencing: the next frontier. Yale L J 126:391–405, 2017
    OpenUrl
  59. 59.↵
    1. Loftus EF
    : Planting misinformation in the human mind: a 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learn Mem 12:361–66, 2005
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  60. 60.↵
    1. Bost PR
    : Crazy beliefs, sane believers: toward a cognitive psychology of conspiracy ideation. Skept Inq 39:44–49, 2015
    OpenUrl
  61. 61.↵
    1. Douglas KM,
    2. Sutton RM,
    3. Callan MJ,
    4. et al
    : Someone is pulling the strings: hypersensitive agency detection and belief in conspiracy theories. Think Reas 22:57–77, 2016
    OpenUrl
  62. 62.↵
    1. van Elk M
    : Perceptual biases in relation to paranormal and conspiracy beliefs. PloS ONE 10:e0130422, 2015
    OpenUrl
  63. 63.↵
    1. van Prooijen JW,
    2. Douglas K,
    3. De Inocencio C
    : Connecting the dots: illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural. Eur J Soc Psychol 48:321–35, 2018
    OpenUrl
  64. 64.↵
    1. van Prooijen JW,
    2. van Dijk E
    : When consequence size predicts belief in conspiracy theories: the moderating role of perspective taking. J Exp Soc Psychol 5:219–32, 2010
    OpenUrl
  65. 65.↵
    1. Douglas KM,
    2. Sutton RM,
    3. Cichocka A
    : The psychology of conspiracy theories. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 26:538–42, 2017
    OpenUrl
  66. 66.↵
    1. Dagnall N,
    2. Drinkwater K,
    3. Parker A,
    4. et al
    : Conspiracy theory and cognitive style: a worldview. Front Psychol 6:1–9, 2015
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  67. 67.↵
    1. Oliver JE,
    2. Wood TJ
    : Conspiracy theories and the paranoid style(s) of mass opinion. Am J Polit Sci 58:952–66, 2014
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  68. 68.↵
    1. Gladman A
    : The Comet Ping Pong gunman answers our reporter's questions. New York Times. December 7, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/07/us/edgar-welch-comet-pizza-fake-news.html. Accessed February 9, 2019
  69. 69.↵
    1. Menegus B
    : Pizzagaters aren't giving this shit up. Gizmodo.com. December 5, 2016. Available at: https://gizmodo.com/pizzagaters-arent-giving-this-shit-up-1789692422. Accessed February 9, 2019
  70. 70.↵
    1. Goertzel T
    : Conspiracy theories in science. EMBO Rep 11:493–99, 2010
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text
  71. 71.↵
    1. Jolley D,
    2. Douglas KM
    : the social consequences of conspiracism: exposure to conspiracy theories decreases intentions to engage in politics and to reduce one's carbon footprint. Brit J Psychol 105:35–56, 2014
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  72. 72.↵
    1. Dawkins R
    : The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989
  73. 73.↵
    1. Blakemore S
    : The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999
  74. 74.↵
    1. Vosoughi S,
    2. Roy D,
    3. Aral S
    : The spread of true and false news online. Science 359:1146–51, 2018
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  75. 75.↵
    1. Del Vicario,
    2. Bessi A,
    3. Zollo F,
    4. et al
    : The spreading of misinformation online. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:554–59, 2015
    OpenUrl
  76. 76.↵
    1. Pariser E
    : The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. New York: The Penguin Press, 2011
  77. 77.↵
    1. Fisher M,
    2. Goddu M,
    3. Keil FC
    : Searching for explanations: how the internet inflates estimates of internal knowledge. J Exp Psychol 144:674–87, 2015
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  78. 78.↵
    1. Flaxman S,
    2. Goel S,
    3. Rao JM
    : Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and online news consumption. Pub Opin Quart 80:298–320, 2016
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  79. 79.↵
    1. Dubois E,
    2. Blank G
    : The echo chamber is overstated: the moderating effect of political interest and diverse media. Inform Communication Society 21:729–45, 2018
    OpenUrl
  80. 80.↵
    1. Vila-Rodriguez F,
    2. Macewan BG
    : Delusional parasitosis facilitated by web-based dissemination. Am J Psychiatr 165:1612, 2008
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  81. 81.↵
    1. Middelveen MJ,
    2. Fesler MC,
    3. Strickler RB
    : History of Morgellons disease: from delusion to definition. Clin Cosmet Investig Dermatol 11:71–90, 2018
    OpenUrl
  82. 82.↵
    1. Lustig A,
    2. Mackay S,
    3. Strauss J
    : Morgellons disease as internet meme. Psychosomatics 50:90, 2009
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  83. 83.↵
    1. Pytyck J,
    2. Chaimowitz GA
    : The sovereign citizen movement and fitness to stand trial. Int J Forensic Ment Health 12:149–53, 2013
    OpenUrl
  84. 84.↵
    1. Parker GF
    : Competence to stand trial evaluations of sovereign citizens: a case series and primer of odd political and legal beliefs. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 42:338–49, 2014
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  85. 85.↵
    Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991).
  86. 86.↵
    1. Weir JP
    : Sovereign citizens: a reasoned response to the madness. Lewis & Clark L Rev 19:829–70, 2015
    OpenUrl
  87. 87.↵
    Fed. R. Evid. 704.
  88. 88.↵
    1. Pierre JM
    : Mental illness and mental health: is the glass half empty or half full? Can J Psychiatr 57:651–58, 2012
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  89. 89.↵
    1. Paris J,
    2. Philips J
    1. Pierre JM
    : Overdiagnosis, underdiagnosis, synthesis: a dialectic for psychiatry and the DSM, in Making the DSM-5. Edited by Paris J, Philips J. New York: Springer, 2013
  90. 90.↵
    1. Weiss KJ
    : At a loss for words: nosological impotence in the search for justice. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 44:36–40, 2016
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  91. 91.↵
    1. Frances A
    : The forensic risks of DSM-V and how to avoid them. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 38:11–14, 2010
    OpenUrlFREE Full Text
  92. 92.↵
    1. First MB,
    2. Halon RL
    : Use of DSM paraphilia diagnoses in sexually violent predator commitment cases. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 36:443–54, 2008
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  93. 93.↵
    1. Frances A,
    2. First MB
    : Hebephilia is not a mental disorder in DSM-IV-TR and should not become one in DSM-5. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 38:78–85, 2011
    OpenUrl
  94. 94.↵
    1. Frances A,
    2. First MB
    : Paraphilia NOS, nonconsent: not ready for the courtroom. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 39:555–61, 2011
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  95. 95.↵
    1. Frances A,
    2. Sreenivasan S,
    3. Weinberger LE
    : Defining mental disorder when it really counts: DSM-IV-TR and SVP/SDP statutes. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 36:375–84, 2008
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  96. 96.↵
    1. Sreenivasan S,
    2. Frances A,
    3. Weinberger LE
    : Normative versus consequential ethics in sexually violent predator laws: an ethics conundrum for psychiatry. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 38:386–91, 2010
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  97. 97.↵
    1. Moser C,
    2. Kleinplatz PJ
    : DSM-IV-TR and the paraphilias: an argument for removal. J Psychol Hum Sexuality 17:91–109, 2005
    OpenUrl
  98. 98.↵
    1. Green R
    : Is pedophilia a mental disorder? Arch Sex Behav 31:467–71, 2002
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  99. 99.↵
    1. Malón A
    : Pedophilia: a diagnosis in search of a disorder. Arch Sex Behav 41:1083–97, 2012
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  100. 100.↵
    1. Seto MC
    : Is pedophilia a sexual orientation? Arch Sex Behav 41:231–36, 2012
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  101. 101.↵
    1. Ward T,
    2. Casey A
    : Extending the mind into the world: a new theory of cognitive distortions in sex offenders. Aggression Viol Behav 15:49–58, 2010
    OpenUrl
  102. 102.↵
    1. O Ciardha C,
    2. Ward T
    : Theories of cognitive distortions in sexual offending: what the current research tells us. Trauma Violence Abuse 14:5–21, 2013
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  103. 103.↵
    1. Pierre JM
    : The neuroscience of free will: implications for psychiatry. Psychol Med 44:2465–74, 2014
    OpenUrlCrossRef
  104. 104.↵
    1. Lewandowsky S,
    2. Ecker UKH,
    3. Seifert CM,
    4. et al
    : Misinformation and its correction: continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychol Sci Pub Interest 13:106–13, 2012
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  105. 105.↵
    1. De Keersmaecker J,
    2. Roets A
    : ‘Fake news’: incorrect, but hard to correct. The role of cognitive ability on the impact of false information on social impressions. Intelligence 65:107–10, 2017
    OpenUrl
  106. 106.↵
    1. Ståhl T,
    2. van Prooijen J
    : Epistemic rationality: Skepticism toward unfounded beliefs requires sufficient cognitive ability and motivation to be rational. Pers Individ Diff 122:155–63, 2018
    OpenUrl
  107. 107.↵
    1. Brown JL,
    2. Phillips KA,
    3. Baer L,
    4. et al
    : The Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale: reliability and validity. Am J Psychiatry 155:102–108, 1998
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  108. 108.↵
    1. Combs DR,
    2. Adams SD,
    3. Michael CO,
    4. et al
    : The Conviction of Delusional Beliefs Scale: reliability and validity. Schizophr Res 86:80–88, 2006
    OpenUrlPubMed
  109. 109.↵
    1. Langdon R
    : The cognitive neuropsychiatry of delusional belief. Cogn Sci 2:449–60, 2011
    OpenUrl
  110. 110.↵
    1. Peters ER,
    2. Moritz S,
    3. Schawannauer M,
    4. et al
    : Cognitive biases questionnaire for psychosis. Schizophr Bull 40:300–13, 2014
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  111. 111.↵
    1. Resnick PJ
    : The detection of malingered psychosis. Psych Clin N Amer 22:159–72, 1999
    OpenUrl
  112. 112.↵
    1. Gostin LO
    : Justifications for the insanity defence in Great Britain and the United States: the conflicting rationales of morality and compassion. Bull Am Acad Psychiatr Law 9:100–15, 1981
    OpenUrlPubMed
  113. 113.↵
    M'Naghten's Case, UKHL J16 (1843).
  114. 114.↵
    Model Penal Code § 4.01 (1985).
  115. 115.↵
    1. Newman WJ,
    2. Harbit MA
    : Folie á deux and the courts. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 38:369–75, 2010
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  116. 116.↵
    1. Holoyda B,
    2. Newman W
    : Between belief and delusion: cult members and the insanity plea. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 44:53–62, 2016
    OpenUrlAbstract/FREE Full Text
  117. 117.↵
    Durham v. United States, 214 F.2d 862 (D.C. Cir. 1954).
  118. 118.↵
    1. Huckabee HM
    : Avoiding the insanity defense straight jacket: the mens rea route. Pepp L Rev 15:1–32, 1987
    OpenUrl
  119. 119.↵
    State v. Mott, 931 P.2d 1046, 1051 (Ariz. 1997).
  120. 120.↵
    Cal. Penal Code § 28 (through 2012 Leg Sess).
  121. 121.↵
    1. Whelan JM
    : Psychotic delusion and the insanity defense. Pub Affairs Quart 23:27–47, 2009
    OpenUrl
  122. 122.↵
    1. Oakley DA,
    2. Halligan PW
    : Chasing the rainbow: the non-conscious nature of being. Front Psychol 8:1924, 2017
    OpenUrl
  123. 123.↵
    1. Morse SJ,
    2. Hoffman MB
    : The uneasy entente between legal insanity and mens rea: beyond Clark v. Arizona. J Crim L Criminol 97:1071–150, 2008
    OpenUrl
  124. 124.↵
    1. Hallett M
    : Volitional control of movement: the physiology of free will. Clin Neurophysiol; 118:1179–92, 2007
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  125. 125.↵
    1. Greene J,
    2. Cohen J
    : For the law, neuroscience changes nothing and everything. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 359:1775–85, 2004
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
  126. 126.↵
    1. Watrous P
    : Pop/jazz; Cecil Taylor, long a rebel, is finding steady work. The New York Times. May 19, 1991. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/10/arts/pop-jazz-cecil-taylor-long-a-rebel-is-finding-steady-work.html. Accessed February 11, 2019
  127. 127.↵
    1. Martin MM,
    2. Anderson CM
    : The cognitive flexibility scale: three validity studies. Comm Rep 11:1–9, 1998
    OpenUrl
  128. 128.↵
    1. Kunda Z
    : The case for motivated reasoning. Psychol Bull 108:480–98, 1990
    OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online: 47 (2)
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
Vol. 47, Issue 2
1 Jun 2019
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in recommending The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law site.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Integrating Non-Psychiatric Models of Delusion-Like Beliefs into Forensic Psychiatric Assessment
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Integrating Non-Psychiatric Models of Delusion-Like Beliefs into Forensic Psychiatric Assessment
Joseph M. Pierre
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Jun 2019, 47 (2) 171-179; DOI: 10.29158/JAAPL.003833-19

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
Integrating Non-Psychiatric Models of Delusion-Like Beliefs into Forensic Psychiatric Assessment
Joseph M. Pierre
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online Jun 2019, 47 (2) 171-179; DOI: 10.29158/JAAPL.003833-19
del.icio.us logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Delusions and DLBs in the DSM
    • Non-Psychiatric Models of DLBs
    • Competing Clinical and Forensic Utilities
    • Integration Through “Cognitive Psychiatry”
    • DLBs and Mens Rea
    • Conclusion
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

  • Suicide Prevention Effects of Extreme Risk Protection Order Laws in Four States
  • Mental Health and Social Correlates of Reincarceration of Youths as Adults
  • Legal and Ethics Considerations in Capacity Evaluation for Medical Aid in Dying
Show more Regular Articles

Similar Articles

Site Navigation

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Ahead of Print
  • Archive
  • Information for Authors
  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Board
  • Feedback
  • Alerts

Other Resources

  • Academy Website
  • AAPL Meetings
  • AAPL Annual Review Course

Reviewers

  • Peer Reviewers

Other Publications

  • AAPL Practice Guidelines
  • AAPL Newsletter
  • AAPL Ethics Guidelines
  • AAPL Amicus Briefs
  • Landmark Cases

Customer Service

  • Cookie Policy
  • Reprints and Permissions
  • Order Physical Copy

Copyright © 2025 by The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law