What's it called when a person tries to convince themselves that something is true by repeatedly telling other people?

i.e. Someone saying "I'm a lot happier now than I used to be" even when they're not happier or in fact are more depressed than they used to be.

It's similar to projection but not that (obviously).

does confabulation fit what you want?

Ah, that could be it.

I was thinking it was something along the lines of "validation" or soemthing but it ain't that

my dictionary describes it like this


It does fit the end result.

Yeah, wiki describes it as...

the spontaneous narrative report of events that never happened. It consists of the creation of false memories, perceptions, or beliefs about the self or the environment.

Which does seem to fit but it seems more to relate to events rather than just psychological state.

I just thought I'd heard of the term before but I've never heard of confabulation.

Delusional? (I know that doesn't fit the requirement of telling other people)

It's not always easy to separate between confabulation, delusion and pathological lying.

Affirmation is another one.

Spin. It is what this government is doing as regards where the deficit came from. They are repeatedly telling everyone it was Labour, (and not the banks who now finance them) that were responisble for the crisis. Repeatedly in the hope that the sheep will believe them.

well thirteen years of not regulating the banks and finance sector, whilst spending more money that was coming in might be held as a contributory cause as well.

Hold on you forgot the lack of regulation under the Tories, they were the ones who completely dereugulated the banks and building societies. I do accept that Labour were spending more than they were getting, but that was a fraction of the drop in revenues from the banking crisis. Both parties have some culpability in the crisis.

The Tories may have had a light touch on regulation whilst in office but the sad fact is Nu-Labour did nothing except go for an even lighter touch and the crisis happened on their watch. Two full terms in office is enough to put some changes in place (yet they had longer) which they failed abysmally to do. Gordon's promise to end the cycle of boom and bust was as most political promises are, just an exhale of hot air.

I am not disagreeing with you but where were the Tories criticising this deregulation? They would have done pretty much the same. They are beholdened to the banks for party funding. Just as Labour were. I do agree with you wholeheartedly that the "end to boom and bust" was a stupid statement.

It's not confabulation. From a medical POV, this is lying because you really don't know the truth. I've seen it in Korsakoff's where a patient lied about what happened that morning because he couldn't remember. What's different to lying is that he didn't think about it and it was an outrageous lie. Claimed he had done XYZ when all he had done that morning was stay in bed on the ward.

Denial would be better - trying to convince yourself and others that (example) you're okay when you're not.

It's not strictly denial - the subject isn't actually denying something when presented with it, they're trying to get other people to agree that the statement is true in the first place, which it may or may not be. That's why I wouldn't classify it as confabulation either - nowhere in the original post does he say what he's interested in people agreeing with him about is false. It sounds rather like a form of.. external affirmation to me i.e. the desire to get others to confirm or support your state of mind. I don't know of a specific psychological phrase for that because it's something we all tend to do to a greater or lesser degree - we're social animals after all, so we wish the approval of the group.

Jon