Erotomania: two case reports

Delusions are common among psychiatric patients. Delusions of passion can be very systematised and, at the same time, incredible. The delusions can remain fixed for a long time and treatment is usually not satisfactory. One of the exotic and rare psychiatric conditions is de Clerarnbault's Syndrome and the main feature is a pure erotomania. This condition defies satisfactory classification in the current ICD-IX and DSM-III, and remains as one of the most difficult to treat and troublesome syndromes. Two patients who developed the symptoms of erotomania were treated by the University Hospital, Kuala Lumpur in 1982-1983. One had the primary erotomania of de Clerambaults syndrome while the other suffered from erotomania as a secondary symptom which was part of the symptomatology of her primary illness of schizophrenia. Their case histories and the current western concepts on erotomania were described.