Factitious disorder
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Factitious disorders are conditions in which a person acts as if he or she has an illness by deliberately producing, feigning, or exaggerating symptoms. Factitious disorder by proxy is a condition in which a person deliberately produces, feigns, or exaggerates symptoms in a person who is in their care. People might be motivated to perpetrate factitious disorders either as a patient or by proxy as a caregiver to gain any variety of benefits including attention, nurturance, sympathy, and leniency that are unobtainable any other way. However, other more tangible benefits might be derived. Related to factitious disorders are somatoform disorders which are characterised by multiple somatic complaints; yet, while the presence of symptoms might be difficult to adequately diagnose, persons suffering from somatoform disorders do not deliberately falsify symptoms or mislead others.
Individuals with Munchausen syndrome may produce symptoms by contaminating urine samples, taking hallucinogens, injecting themselves with bacteria to produce infections, and other such similar behaviour.
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