DELIRIUM. — A morbid error of appraisal and judgment that cannot be modified by contrary sensations and experiences, reasonable criticism from others, or evidence of opposing facts. Organized into a firm ideational-emotional complex, d. becomes invincible because of the heightened affective tone, psychosensory alterations (illusions, hallucinations), memory disturbances, and the subject’s deficient intellectual and critical maturity. Present in many mental illnesses, it assumes an organically systematized structure in paranoia, constituting a solid, coherent, and logical edifice built upon certain unreal premises.
Giuseppe de Ninno