DELUSIONAL AND HALLUCINATORY EXPERIENCES IN CHILDREN
J. LOUISE DESPERT M. D.1
1 The New York Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, New York.
The records of three groups of children—normal, preschool children; children with behavior and neurotic problems; and finally, psychotic children—were analyzed with a view of gaining information about and insight into hallucinatory and delusional phenomena in children. The large majority of the children belonged in the normal and superior range of intellectual functioning.
No evidence of true hallucinations or delusions was found in the group of young, normal children. The possibility of hypnagogic hallucinations in relation to phobias was indicated. Experiences which came closest to true hallucinations, referred to as pseudohallucinations, were found in very few children who presented evidences of conflict and emotional immaturity. The fact that hypnagogic hallucinations appeared under the influence of anxiety points to the part played by anxiety in the genesis of hallucinations.
In the group of unselected children with behavior and neurotic problems, a small number reported auditory hallucinations and delusional experiences which were characterized by their simplicity and singleness, with the remainder of the personality relatively untouched. The experiences could be interpreted as representing a conflict between instinctual demands and taboos.
The hallucinatory and delusional experiences of the psychotic children above the 10-to 11-year level were found to be very similar to those found in psychotic adults, except for their greater simplicity, and lack of organization and systematization. In the younger children it was often difficult to ascertain the content of delusional experiences, even when it was obvious that the patients reacted to auditory and visual hallucinations; delusions frequently represented identifications with animals, or were manifestations of regressive patterns of behavior and ideation, with the reappearance of very primitive forms of expression.
