The role of magical thinking in hallucinations. Comparisons of clinical and non-clinical groups
Sammanfattning
Background: Magical thinking consists of accepting the possibility that events that, according to
the causal concepts of a culture, cannot have any causal relationship, but might somehow
nevertheless have one. Magical thinking has been related to both obsessive-compulsive disorder
and schizophrenia. Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of magical
thinking in hallucinations of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Methods: Four groups were
recruited for this purpose from a clinical population (hallucinating schizophrenic patients,
patients diagnosed with psychoses who had never hallucinated, obsessive-compulsive disorder
patients and a clinical control group) and a non-clinical control group, who were given the
Magical Ideation Scale. Results: The results show that magical ideation differentiates the group
of schizophrenic patients with auditory hallucinations from the rest of the groups that
participated in the design. Items related to " mind reading" , to the presence of auditory illusions
in response to sound stimuli, and to the sense of sometimes being accompanied by an evil
presence are the most closely related to the presence of auditory hallucinations. Conclusions:
Magical thinking, understood as beliefs in non-consensual modes of causation, is closely linked
to auditory hallucinations in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.