The Kandinsky–Clérambault syndrome or syndrome of the psychic automatism is a psychopathological syndrome, considered to be a typical feature of paranoid schizophrenia and is characterized by pseudohallucinations, delusions of control, telepathy, thought broadcasting and thought insertion by an external force.[1] The syndrome also characterized by delusion of being controlled by a source outside himself.[2] The Kandinsky-Clérambault syndrome is not well known and it is used mainly by Russian, French and German psychiatrists.[3]
| Kandinsky–Clérambault syndrome | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Syndrome of the psychic automatism |
| Specialty | Psychiatry  |
History
The syndrome of Kandinsky–Clérambault is named after Victor Kandinsky and Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault.Victor Kandinsky (1849–1889), a Russian psychiatrist, was the first to describe the syndrome of psychic automatism by his own subjective personal experiences during his psychotic episode. The syndrome of psychic automatism is described in a Kandinsky's monograph in Russian "On Pseudohallucinations" (Russian: О псевдогаллюцинациях) published posthumously in 1890 by his wife Elizaveta Freimut. The syndrome is also identified by Gaëtan Gatian de Clérambault (1872–1934), a French psychiatrist who credited with introducing the term "psychic automatism".[3]
Literature
Ian McEwan's novel Enduring Love has a victim of the syndrome, a jed Parry, as one of the protagonists. Parry targets and almost destroys the married life of the science journalist he falls in love with. [4] [5]