Pseudohallucinations: A pseudoconcept? A review of the validity of the concept, related to associate symptomatology

Abstract 

“Pseudohallucination” is a concept used in the classification of nonpsychotic perceptual disorders. This report describes the history of the concept and investigates whether pseudohallucinations can be differentiated from related psychopathological symptoms, such as hallucinations, re-experiencing, and dissociative phenomena. We performed a literature review, which shows that pseudohallucinations and related symptoms have low construct validity and are, accordingly, clinically ambiguous. Most likely, pseudohallucinations are placed on an overlapping continuum of symptomatology that includes perceptual disorders, re-experiencing, (dissociative) imagery, and normal thought and memory processes. Recommendations are made regarding the specification of dimensions of this continuum. The term “nonpsychotic hallucinations” is preferred over “pseudohallucination.”

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