2024/03/03 by Eugenia Lancellotta · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies #Mental Health and Psychiatry #Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders
paper · doi:10.1080/09515089.2024.2323054
openalex publication_date 2024/03/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
Delusions are usually depicted in one of two contrasting ways. They are either characterized as harmful and dysfunctional beliefs or as fostering engagement with the environment and sometimes even psychological wellbeing in the face of psychological or biological difficulties – something which, according to some accounts, would make them biologically adaptive. It is this “adaptive hypothesis” that I focus on in this paper, by empirically investigating the adaptiveness of delusions in a sample of people suffering from OCD. The paper shows that delusions in OCD entertain complex and heterogeneous relationships with psychological wellbeing and engagement with the environment, highlighting some future directions that clinical and philosophical research on the topic should take.