What is the Capgras’s Syndrome ?

In 1923, the French psychiatrist Capgras described a syndrome of what he called “L’illusion des sosies“. Sosie is a French word meaning “double“, a person who looks like another one.

The patient claims that a person is a double or an impostor who has assumed this person’s appearance in order to deceive him. For instance, the patient claims his father is not his father, but either a double of him.

The person whose existence is denied is a very import person in the live of the patient, and he express his love to the real person and his hate to the double.

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(Edited by Dr. María Moya Guirao, MD)