Amenomania (compound of Latin amoenus, "cheerful"; and Greek μανία, "madness")[1] is a disused psychiatric diagnosis that originally designated patients with delusional disorders which do not paralyse them, but who may have fixed bizarre delusions. In some cases, religious delusion might accompany, causing individuals to believe themselves to have peculiar spiritual powers, or to even be God, often characterising outlines which might be diagnosed by modern psychiatry as paranoid schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.[2][3]

According to Benjamin Rush, amenomania would be a higher form of hypochondriasis, in which the patient, instead of having anxiety upon non-existent diseases, would deny any imperfection in his health, being not melancholic about his mental abnormalities, but rather cheerful (hence the name of the condition).[4]

References

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  1. ^ Palmer, Shirley (1845). A Pentaglot Dictionary of the terms employed in anatomy, physiology, pathology, practical medicine, surgery, obstetrics, medical jurisprudence, materia medica, pharmacy medical zoology, botany and chemistry. Vol. 1. London: Longman and Co. p. 29. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  2. ^ Rush 1835, pp. 135–6
  3. ^ Noll, Richard (2007) [1992]. The Encyclopedia of Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders (3 ed.). New York: Infobase Publishing. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9780816075089. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
  4. ^ Rush 1835, p. 133

Bibliography

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