The French connection: folie à quatre

Can J Psychiatry. 1989 Feb;34(1):55-7. doi: 10.1177/070674378903400114.

Abstract

A socially isolated family in which the three children shared their mother's delusional beliefs is reported. After separation, the children rapidly adjusted to normal school and foster family life. Difficulties in establishing the family's true identity and problems raised in reuniting the family, while the mother was felt to be concealing her remaining delusions, are discussed.

Publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Child
  • Child Abuse / psychology
  • Delusions / psychology*
  • Emigration and Immigration
  • Female
  • France
  • Humans
  • Mother-Child Relations*
  • Shared Paranoid Disorder / psychology*
  • Social Isolation
  • Suicide / psychology