cases when the delusions of a mentally ill person are “transmitted” to persons from his environment, i.e. a person close to the patient begins to share his delusional ideas. Occasionally, induced delusions occur not in one, but in several or even many people at once, this mechanism was the basis of previously widespread “psychic epidemics”. Several conditions are necessary for the development of induced delusions:
1) Prolonged communication between the inducer and the induced;
2) Slow development of delusions, a certain degree of its plausibility and emotional “charge” of the inducer;
3) The predisposition of the induced to suggestion (infantile thinking, characterological anomalies similar to the inducer, and so on).
Induced delirium is usually fragile and quickly disintegrates when disconnected from the inductor.