What is the difference between delusion, fantasy, and obsession?

Question

I'm looking for clinical defs here, so I don't want people who don't know the topic giving me abstacts and colloquials.

Answer 1

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A delusion is commonly defined as a fixed false belief and is used in everyday language to describe a belief that is either false, fanciful or derived from deception. In psychiatry, the definition is necessarily more precise and implies that the belief is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process). Delusions typically occur in the context of neurological or mental illness, although they are not tied to any particular disease and have been found to occur in the context of many pathological states (both physical and mental). However, they are of particular diagnostic importance in psychotic disorders and particularly in schizophrenia.

A fantasy is a situation imagined by an individual or group, which does not correspond with reality but expresses certain desires or aims of its creator. Fantasies typically involve situations which are impossible (such as the existence of magic powers) or highly unlikely (such as world peace). Fantasies can also be sexual in nature. In the theory of psychoanalysis, phantasy is used to describe unconscious desires, fears, drives etc. Sigmund Freud used the German word 'Phantasie', which could be translated as 'fantasy', but the meaning is clearly not the same as the everyday meaning and is usually printed as 'phantasy'. This should be strongly contrasted with delusion.

Obsession is a synonym for fixation. In human psychology, fixation refers to the state where an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another human, animal or inanimate object. A Freudian belief that, if during one of the psychosexual stages of development, a person did not receive appropriate gratification during a specific stage, or that a specific stage left a particularly strong impression, that person's personality would reflect that particular stage throughout their adult life. Fixation to intangibles (i.e., ideas, ideologies etc.) can also occur (see Zealotry and Fanaticism).

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

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Thanks for the comprehensive defs! It's been too long since school.

Answer 2

delusion- false belief strongly held in spite of invalidating evidence, especially as a symptom of mental illness: delusions of persecution.

fantasy-an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need; daydream.

obsession- compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.