Part 2 of the psychosis mini-series looks at delusions (AKA ‘Fixed, false beliefs – not amenable to reason’). Delusions are more than just vague ideas – they’re the things people hold to be most certain. Here we look at some of the ways that delusions form, the relationship between delusions, illusions and hallucinations and we begin to think about some of the ways that we can help delusional people.

I have long maintained that this connection is vital to our understanding of psychosis and yet not a word about it was uttered during my nurse training.The student nurses of 1992-95 never heard a peep about these vital links. The student nurses of 2017… well… We consider the role of memory and familiarity in perception and how the self-fulfilling prophecy of expectation can create mistakes, not only in our five senses but in the beliefs we form that so often rely upon that sense data to begin with.

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