Folie A Deux (Noun)
Meaning
The simultaneous occurrence of symptoms of a mental disorder (as delusions) in two persons who are closely related (as siblings or man and wife).
Classification
Nouns denoting natural processes.
Examples
- The therapists suspected that the twin sisters were suffering from folie à deux, as they both claimed to have been abducted by aliens.
- As the investigation continued, it became clear that the couple's devotion to each other had escalated into a folie à deux, with each partner's delusions feeding the other's.
- The psychiatrist specializing in rare mental disorders was fascinated by the case of the married couple who had developed a shared folie à deux, convinced that their neighbors were spying on them.
- After years of living together in isolation, the siblings' grip on reality began to slip, and they descended into a folie à deux, imagining that their house was haunted by malevolent spirits.
- As the delusions worsened, it became clear that the mother-daughter relationship had morphed into a toxic folie à deux, with each woman reinforcing the other's paranoia and fantasies.