Source : FISH ’S Clinical psychopathology

The sense of ‘presence’

It is difficult to classify an abnormal sense of presence because, although it is not strictly a sense deception, it cannot be regarded as a delusion either.

Most normal people have from time to time the sense that someone is present when they are alone, on a dark street or climbing a dimly lit staircase. Often the feeling is that there is somebody behind them. Usually this is dismissed as imagination but nevertheless they look behind them to

be certain. However, sometimes there is the feeling that someone is present, whom they cannot see, and may or may not be able to name. For example, Saint Teresa of Avila wrote, ‘One day when I was at prayer – it was the feast-day of the glorious Saint Peter

– I saw Christ at my side – or, to put it better, I was conscious of Him, for I saw nothing with the eyes of the body or the eyes of the soul. He seemed quite close to me, and I saw that it was He’. She says a little later,

‘But I felt most clearly that he was all the time on my right, and was a witness of everything that I was doing’.

This experience was probably the result of lack of sleep, hunger and religious enthusiasm. It may also have been a metaphorical way of describing closeness to God/Christ. One patient described a presence over her right shoulder that followed her from room to room and even though she knew that there was nobody there, the feeling was intense and distressing, so much so that at times she hid under the bedclothes to escape.

The sense of a presence can occur in healthy people as well as in organic states, schizophrenia or hysteria and the patient described above also had a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.