Photo by Robby Massey

The following passage is from Neuro.psychiatryonline.org:

“Fregoli syndrome is the delusional misidentification of familiar persons disguised as others. While the organic etiology of Capgras syndrome, another delusional misidentification syndrome (DMS), is widely studied, there are only anecdotal reports on a similar etiology for Fregoli syndrome.”

Case Report:

“A 30-year-old woman was admitted with first break psychosis of acute onset characterized by disorganized behavior, loosening of association, auditory hallucinations, and persecutory delusions. The striking feature of the patient’s psychopathology was her misidentifying strangers as people known to her. In the emergency room, she misidentified another patient as her boyfriend and on the unit she misidentified the nurse as her mother and the social worker as her sister. Though these persons bore no close resemblance with the patient’s family members, the patient was convinced that her family members had been transformed into these strangers.”