Lisa Bortolotti

“Health”, as Quentin Crisp memorably put it, “consists of having the same diseases as one’s neighbours”, and I was reminded of that reading this.

Why Delusions Matter comes in two halves. The popular and ingrained view is that delusions are an individual and pathological trait, just flawed pictures of the world caused by a straightforward dysfunction, and Part One goes into some detail about this side of them—their chief characteristics and relationship to such things as belief show more and personal identity. In Part Two, though, Lisa Bortolotti introduces a lesser-known obverse side to incorrect beliefs of all kinds: the positive role they can also play, both individually and collectively. Such as: in defusing anxiety and other corrosive emotions by dealing with uncertainty and giving a sense of control; by contributing to meaning and a worldview which, whether accurate or not, does at least work. And as a social phenomenon, too, they can bind people together and give a feeling of belonging.

I found the first part hard going, but interesting: classical “delusions”, as we usually think of them, are in fact just at one end of a whole range of milder self-deceptions. But it was Part Two which made the really big impression: the idea that things like incorrect beliefs, over-optimism, even conspiracy theories and outright clinical delusions can, in certain circumstances (as a last-ditch emergency measure in particular, when all might be psychologically lost otherwise), be beneficial to our mental health. There’s a lot more to delusions than I’d…well, imagined. show less