Delusions: when to confront the facts of life

Research indicates that patients do not hold delusions with as fixed a certainty as has been believed. Confrontation with reality may have an important role in the evaluation and treatment of delusional patients. The authors suggest four factors that may help predict the value of reality confrontation in a given clinical situation: 1) how understandable the delusion is in the context of the patient's life, 2) the degree of conviction with which the patient holds the delusion, 3) the phase in development of the delusional beliefs, and 4) the diagnosis of the patient.