Playing Sick?: Untangling the Web of Munchausen Syndrome, Munchausen by Proxy, Malingering, and Factitious Disorder

by Feldman, Marc D., M.D.

• ISBN13: 9780415949347
• ISBN10: 0415949343
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-03
• Publisher: ROUTLEDGE

Summary

When a person fakes illness or injury to satisfy emotional needs, doctors and family members are lured into a costly, frustrating, and potentially deadly web of deceit. Taken from bizarre cases of real patients,Playing Sick?is the first book to chronicle the devastating impact of phony illnesses--factitious disorders and Munchausen syndrome--on patients and caregivers alike. Psychiatrist Marc Feldman describes patients' strange motivations, from malingerers who invent chronic back pain to avoid work to mothers who demand major abdominal surgery for their healthy children because they derive perverse pleasure from medical attention. Self-induced bleeding, fake fevers, and even a bogus asthma attack so convincing that doctors rush the patient to ICU are the stock in trade of patients with these disorders. Practitioners are deeply disturbed by these patients, angry about the time and resources they consume but nervous about confronting them with the truth. Based on years of researchand clinical practice,Playing Sick?provides the clues that can help practitioners and family members recognize these disorders, avoid invasive procedures, and sort out the motives that drive people to hurt themselves and deceive others. With insight and years of hands-on experience, Feldman shows how to get these emotionally ill patients the psychiatric help they need.

Table of Contents

Author's Note	p. xiii
Foreword	p. xv
Preface	p. xxiii
Acknowledgments	p. xxix
Dying for Attention	p. 1
Disease or Deception? An Overview of the Issues	p. 18
Pseudologia Fantastica: Lies Larger than Life	p. 33
Invading the Body: The Enemy Within	p. 44
Feverish Ploys	p. 56
Out of Control: When the Ruse Becomes Real	p. 65
False Accusations and the Girl Who Cried "Wolf"	p. 77
Drawing Back the Curtains: The Motives Behind the Madness	p. 87
Mental Masquerades	p. 102
Munchausen by Proxy: When Factitious Disorder Becomes Abuse	p. 121
Munchausen by Proxy 2: After Detection	p. 149
Cyber-Deception: Virtual Factitious Disorder and Munchausen by Internet	p. 161
People Who Care: The Casualties of Deception	p. 173
Conscience, Ethics, and the Law	p. 185
Detection and Diagnosis	p. 201
Healing: Intervention and Treatment	p. 218
Notes	p. 245
Selected Readings	p. 247
Selected Websites	p. 257
Index	p. 262
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