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Concept
Clinical lycanthropy
Summary
Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform into, has transformed into, or is, an animal. Its name is associated with the mythical condition of lycanthropy, a supernatural affliction in which humans are said to physically shapeshift into wolves. It is purported to be a rare disorder.
Affected individuals believe that they are in the process of transforming into an animal or have already transformed into an animal. This is also known as Species Identity Disorder or Species Dysphoria (also see Dissociative Identity Disorder). Clinical Lycanthropy has been associated with the altered states of mind that accompany psychosis (the mental state that typically involves delusions and hallucinations) with the transformation only seeming to happen in the mind and behavior of the affected person.
A study on clinical lycanthropy from the McLean Hospital reported on a series of cases and proposed some diagnostic criteria by which clinical lycanthropy could be recognised:
A patient reports in a moment of lucidity or reminiscence that they sometimes feel as an animal or have felt like one.
A patient behaves in a manner that resembles animal behavior, for example howling, growling, or crawling.
According to these criteria, either a delusional belief in current or past transformation or behavior that suggests a person thinks of themselves as transformed is considered evidence of clinical lycanthropy. The authors note that, although the condition seems to be an expression of psychosis, there is no specific diagnosis of mental or neurological illness associated with its behavioral consequences.
It also seems that clinical lycanthropy is not specific to an experience of human-to-wolf transformation; a wide variety of creatures have been reported as part of the shape-shifting experience. A review of the medical literature from early 2004 lists over thirty published cases of clinical lycanthropy, only the minority of which have wolf (Lycanthropy) or dog (Cynanthropy) themes.
Official source
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