Homo-erotomania for a delusional parent: erotomania with Capgras and Fregoli syndromes in a young male with learning difficulties.

Doctors wrote up one 19-year-old man who had learning difficulties.

He believed his father was in love with him, thought Dad was an impostor, and also felt strangers were really Dad in disguise.

The team gave antipsychotic pills and watched what happened.

The young man’s sexual delusion plus Capgras and Fregoli ideas eased after medicine.

No behavior plan was tried; pills alone calmed the fixed false beliefs.

Reiss et al. (1993) told a nearly identical story three years earlier: one male with intellectual disability and erotomania. The 1996 paper simply adds the extra twist of Capgras and Fregoli, so it extends rather than contradicts the earlier case.

Fernandes et al. (2016) saw paraphilic fixations in a quarter of 184 teens and adults with autism and low adaptive scores. Their large set shows these sexual preoccupations are not one-off oddities; the single case here is a vivid example of what can surface.

Dagnan et al. (2005) tracked stress-triggered hallucinations in adolescents with alpha-mannosidosis. Both studies flag sudden psychiatric symptoms in young people with ID, reminding you to rule out medical causes before labeling behavior as “just the disability.”

If a client with ID suddenly claims a parent loves them romantically or says people keep shape-shifting, think psychosis first, not attention-seeking. Ask for a psychiatric consult and chart antecedents; medicine may shrink the delusion enough for you to teach safer social thoughts later.