Psychodynamic approaches to the Capgras delusion: a critical historical review

Over the last eight decades a plethora of psychodynamic explanations have been invoked to account for the Capgras delusion. While often ill-founded and convoluted, these formulations have, until recently, dominated many theoretical approaches to the phenomenon. Generally post hoc and teleological in nature, they postulate motives that are not introspectable and defence mechanisms that cannot be observed, measured or refuted. While psychosocial factors can and often do play a part in the development, content and course of the Capgras delusion in individual patients it remains to be proven that such factors are necessary and sufficient to account for delusional misidentification in general and the Capgras delusion in particular.