| Abstract |
This training title demonstrates Mental Disorder/Illness Symptom: Ideas of Reference. "Ideas of reference" is an extreme form of the normal phenomenon of "self reference." In self-reference people refer to themselves in the first person. Ideas of reference, however, is a pathologically delusional phenomenon in which people experience innocuous events as being enormously significant to their personal lives. (Example: A person may believe that an advertisement on TV was designed as an exclusive personal message. A person may believe that a comment of the President of the United States meant the comment only for that one viewer, when the context of the President's speech is far from that.) This phenomenon is sometimes observed in schizophrenia, mania, and delusional disorders. |
