FACTITIOUS DISORDER: what is it, symptoms and treatment

  • Jul 26, 2021
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Factitious disorder: what it is, symptoms and treatment

Not a few people have sometimes found themselves in situations where pretending or exaggerating turned out to be the solution to their problems. However, there is a mental condition, the controversial factitious disorder, which is characterized mainly for acting or feigning a physical and / or mental illness or disease, despite not having it Really. For this reason, these people are difficult people to diagnose by healthcare personnel since, Despite having all medical care focused on the patient, they cannot find the root of the trouble. In this Psychology-Online article we will talk about what is factitious disorder, about its symptoms and its treatment.

As mentioned above, factitious disorder, formerly referred to as Munchausen syndrome, consists of the patient, intentionally, reproduces and creates physical or psychological symptoms without actually having any real illness. With these actions, the patient does not seek any personal benefit, but rather needs to assume the role of sick to be cared for by medical services since they have the need, conscious or not, that someone take care of them or attend them constantly. As there is, normally, an exaggeration of the symptoms, it can cause the patient to be referred to different medical professionals to find out exactly what your ailment is, without making a clear diagnosis. In addition, you can reach

self-harm, intoxicate, to undergo different operations or treatments or manipulate tests and tests to try to give the veracity of their symptoms.

Prevalence

Currently, different studies have concluded that the prevalence of this disorder would be around the 1% of the population and the most frequent patients would be men.

Disorder or fiction?

Somatoform disorder, which includes somatization disorder and conversion or dissociative disorders, Among others, they differ from factitious disorder by the presence of real and not invented symptoms in the patients. These symptoms are derived from a psychological problem, although there is no presence of an organic pathology, what we call somatization. In contrast, in factitious disorder, the symptoms are not real and they are invented by the person to meet certain needs.

Causes

There are several factors that can help this disorder appear, such as, for example, having lived situations of sexual abuse or abuse during childhood, suffering from a personality disorder, depression or having suffered a significant loss, among others.

Types

According to the most updated Manual of Mental Disorders, there are two types of factitious disorder, the one applied to oneself and the one applied to another.

Within the factitious disorder applied to others, we can find the Munchausen syndrome by proxy. It is currently considered as a form of child abuse, in which the child's caregiver invents illnesses and symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it appear that the child is ill.

The main difference between factitious disorder and acts of pretense is the intentionality of these actions. A person who acts, invents or fakes certain symptoms to obtain a personal benefit, such as getting rid of some event or obligation, you are carrying out a act of simulation.

Instead, factitious disorder is a psychopathology which the patient also invents symptoms and illnesses, but his intention is related to having a psychological need to be cared for and to assume the role of sick person or patient.

Factitious disorder is generally difficult for healthcare workers to treat and, to this day, there is still no treatment that has proven to be fully effective for this disease. However, psychological treatment can be useful, in particular, cognitive behavioral therapy. It has been observed that, through this therapy, it can help to change the behavior, the thinking of the person, to manage stress and anxiety and to treat at the root the reason that caused this disorder. Psychological treatment will also focus on trying to make the patient reduce the frequency in which they go to medical services and avoid misuse of them. If necessary, a pharmacological treatment could be used to alleviate the symptoms, using antidepressants or anxiolytics, always under the criteria of medical professionals.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Factitious disorder: what it is, symptoms and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

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