On Mini-mental state examination scored 30/30. She was conscious, co-operative and well oriented to time place and person. There was no history of seizures, brain insult etc. On mental status examination, fearful, auditory hallucination discussing and commenting type, delusion of persecution, and impaired judgment with poor insight were present. There was no remarkable family or history of psychiatric illness, sexual abuse or childhood emotional trauma. She was brought to our outpatient clinic, diagnosed with schizophrenia. She would not attend social gatherings, would not participate in festivals too. Compliance was not so good, citing the reason of no improvement with the drugs.Īpart from the above symptoms, she also had a significant decline in scholastic performance and stopped going to college.
She visited various psychiatrists, started on antipsychotic but had not much relief. She denied having any sensation to hers’ original body. As her “self” would ask for help in a loud volume and would cry. She would have guilt that she could not save the “self” being raped by someone. She would say that a man would come and would rape with the “self”. She would say that her double would appear naked to her it was like her “mirror image” or “self”. She would describe her double with the similar facial features, colour and style of hair, complexion in fact “it was another me”. “double” in front of her about 2-3 feet away from her body. Later on, she revealed that “she would see herself, i.e. While crying, she would point out her figures toward the wall. Since the last two and half years, she started crying on and off the pattern for about 5-10 minutes about 3-4 times in a day. For these symptoms, was taken to various faith healers and local quake but had no relief. Gradually her condition deteriorated, stopped going out of the home, and would remain fearful, not participating in household chores. In addition to hearing voices, the delusion of persecution, delusion of reference, poor self-care, and poor social interaction were also present. In the indexed case report, we present here a case of a young schizophrenic female who presented with rare phenomenon of autoscopic hallucination since last five years.Ī 27-year young single female belongs to urban nuclear family from upper socio-economic status presented with insidious onset of symptoms since last five years characterised by auditory hallucination voices were discussing and threatening type. The autoscopic hallucination is never reported in a female, suffering from primary psychiatric illness without having any comorbid physical illness or substance use. A case is reported in a young male who had schizophrenia with a history of substance use10. Two cases of autoscopic hallucinations are reported which were associated with alcohol and drug-induced respectively. This phenomenon has been reported in association with organic pathology like meningitis, seizures, space-occupying lesions, brain tumours, migraine, delirium, posttraumatic brain lesions etc. It is a visual hallucination in which an individual experiences, all or part of the person’s own body appeared within the external space, viewed from his/her physical body. Though it has been described since ancient times, not much attention paid by the researchers.Īutoscopy is the word derived from the Greek words ‘Autos’ (self) and ‘skopeo’ (looking at). Keywords: Autoscopic Hallucination Schizophrenia.Īutoscopic hallucination is the rarest psychopathology which has not been reported as much as like other psychopathology. A Psychiatrist should be familiar with this kind of unique phenomenology. Here we are reporting a female patient presenting with the autoscopic hallucination presented with Schizophrenia. However, it has rarely been reported in the case of primary psychiatric illness. It has been reported in various organic conditions and specifically in the male gender. It is a psychic visual hallucination in which a person experienced a part or whole body in the external space. of Psychiatry PGIMER, Chandigarh India.Īutoscopic hallucination is an interesting phenomenon since the past many years but has not been reported much in a clinical setting. An unusual Case of Autoscopic Hallucination: A Case Report and Review of LiteratureĪseem Mehra 1, Sandeep Grover 2, Manoj Kumar 3ġAssistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research Institute, India.ĢProfessor, Department of Psychiatry, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research Institute, India.ģJunior Resident, Department of Psychiatry, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research Institute, India.Ĭorresponding Author: Aseem Mehra, Assistant professor Department of Psychiatry Nehru Hospital, Cobalt Block 3rd Floor, Dept.
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