The primary plays a dominant role, while the secondary plays a submissive role. More than half of reported cases involve either mother-daughter or sister-sister pairs. untreated mental illness in the primary in the relationship most common diagnosis is delusional disorder.personality traits: neurotic, emotionally immature, passivity, suggestibility, suspiciousness.personality disorders: histrionic | dependent | schizoid, schizotypal.

lengthy relationship with strong attachment, usually family members.

Several risk factors contribute to the development of folie à deux, including:

folie induite (induced): a psychotic person adds new delusions to another psychotic person’s delusional system.

folie communiquée (communicated): the “normal” secondary maintains the delusion after separation.

folie simultanée (simultaneous): both people were psychotic to begin with, and came to share a delusion.

folie imposée (imposed psychosis): the primary imposes the delusional beliefs on the secondary.

In 1942, psychiatrist Alexander Gralnick proposed four subtypes of folie à deux based on how the shared delusions came about: The disorder was first identified in the late 1800s.

The primary, or inducer, in the relationship holds the original delusional belief, and then the secondary, or induced, in the relationship comes to share the delusion. It’s a rare condition that involves shared delusions between two or more people who are in a close relationship.

In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week’s term is shared psychotic disorder, also known as folie à deux.įolie à deux is the more commonly recognized name for what the DSM-5 calls shared psychotic disorder.

Folie a deux wine lodi