[Confabulatory paraphrenia, taxonomy and psychopathology]

A 60 year old woman has elaborated for the last 20 years a delusional system, which refers to an illegitimate birth but which also claims that she has published works of well-known French Writers and that she has been for some time in concentration camp. There is probably a relationship to what happened to her during infancy (she spent the 13 first years of life in foster homes and institution). To some extent she justifies Bruno Bettelheim's thesis relative to a similarity of experiences of concentration camp and deprived infancy. Such a delusional system can be classified under the krapelinian heading of paraphrenia fantastica. Its does not seem to have been included in the DSM-III and DSM-III-R.