Munchausen syndrome
Fabricated medical symptoms
Munchausen syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which a person feigns or induces illness in themselves to receive medical attention and care.
The person may fabricate symptoms, tamper with medical tests, or deliberately harm themselves to appear sick.
Unlike malingering, the goal isn't external reward like disability payments—it's the psychological gratification of occupying the patient role.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy (now called factitious disorder imposed on another) involves making someone else, typically a child, appear ill.
- factitiousProduced by human effort
- fabricatedInvented, not real
- feignedFalsely displayed or simulated
- illnessState of poor health
- hospitalMedical treatment facility
doctor shopping · attention · cry for help · deception · self-inflicted · sympathy · proxy · caregiver · true crime · victim · drama · pathological · lying · medical · doctor · injury · symptoms · manipulation
- Medical EponymsAlzheimer's, Parkinson's, Crohn's disease, Huntington's disease, Bell's palsy
- SyndromesGuillain-Barre, restless leg, irritable bowel, IBS, chronic fatigue
- deceptive disorderspathological lying, mythomania, Munchausen by proxy
- delusionsdelusions of grandeur, grandeur, paranoia, erotomania, persecution complex
- psychosomatic disordersconversion disorder, functional disorder, hypochondriasis, somatization, hysterical blindness
- Disputed Diagnoseschronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, adrenal fatigue