- Formerly called:
- hysteria
conversion disorder
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What is conversion disorder?
Conversion disorder is a mental disorder where psychological distress manifests as sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances without any known organic or structural pathology. It is more common in those with a history of child abuse or trauma and can occur at any age, though it is most often seen in early adulthood.
Symptoms include sensory disturbances, such as changes in sensitivity, and motor symptoms, ranging from paralysis to tremors. Psychic symptoms can include amnesia or multiple personalities.
The cause is linked to repressed, emotionally charged thoughts that convert into physical symptoms. Treatment involves psychotherapy to bring underlying conflicts to the patient’s awareness, along with support from family, friends, and therapists.
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What are the main symptoms of conversion disorder?
Conversion disorder involves sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances without underlying organic pathology. It is considered a psychoneurosis where anxiety converts into physical symptoms.
Symptoms include sensory disturbances like paresthesia, hyperesthesia, and anesthesia, which don't follow the body's nerve distribution. Motor symptoms range from paralysis, tremors, and tics to loss of speech, coughing, or vomiting. Psychic symptoms include amnesia and sleepwalking.
Symptoms appear suddenly during extreme stress and may last days or years if untreated. Treatment involves psychotherapy to address underlying conflicts. Support from family and friends is also important.
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How is conversion disorder different from other mental illnesses?
Conversion disorder, traditionally labeled hysteria, is a mental disorder where psychological distress manifests as physical symptoms like paralysis or loss of sensation, without underlying organic pathology.
Unlike other mental illnesses, conversion disorder symptoms involve sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances, such as blindness, deafness, tremors, or amnesia. These symptoms appear suddenly, often following extreme psychological stress. While the incidence of conversion disorder is diminishing, its treatment requires psychological methods, like exploring underlying emotional conflicts, rather than pharmacological ones. Support and reassurance from therapists, family, and friends are important components of therapy.
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What causes someone to develop conversion disorder?
Conversion disorder is a mental disorder where psychological distress manifests as sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances, without any known organic or structural pathology.
Conversion disorder has been linked to early psychosexual development fixations, where threatening or emotionally charged thoughts are repressed out of consciousness and converted into physical symptoms. It seems to occur more often among individuals who have a history of child abuse or who have experienced a traumatic event. Symptoms usually appear suddenly in a setting of extreme psychological stress.
The symptoms may provide a psychological advantage in social relationships by gathering sympathy or by relieving the person of stressful obligations. Psychotherapy is a common treatment, bringing the patient’s consciousness to those feelings, ideas, and conflicts that are causing the symptoms.
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How do psychologists diagnose conversion disorder?
In diagnosing conversion disorder, psychologists look for sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances without any organic or structural pathology. Sensory symptoms include anesthesia (loss of sensation), hyperesthesia (hypersensitivity), or paresthesias (“peculiar” sensations). Motor symptoms include paralysis, tremors, tics, or convulsions. Psychic symptoms include amnesia or multiple personalities. Diagnosis involves ruling out organic causes through neurological examination, which reveals an intact neuromuscular apparatus with normal reflexes and responses. Psychologists consider a history of trauma or child abuse and assess whether symptoms allow the individual to gain an advantage in social relationships or avoid stressful situations.
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What treatments are available for conversion disorder?
Conversion disorder is a mental disorder where psychological distress manifests as physical symptoms, such as sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances, without any known organic or structural pathology.
Treatment primarily involves psychotherapy, which aims to bring the patient’s repressed feelings, ideas, and conflicts into conscious awareness. Support and reassurance from therapists, family, and friends are crucial components of the therapy process. Unlike other mental disorders, conversion disorders require psychological rather than pharmacological methods, emphasizing the exploration of underlying emotional conflicts.
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conversion disorder, a type of mental disorder in which a wide variety of sensory, motor, or psychic disturbances may occur. It is traditionally classified as one of the psychoneuroses and is not dependent upon any known organic or structural pathology. The former term, hysteria, is derived from the Greek hystera, meaning “uterus,” and reflects the ancient notion that hysteria was a specifically female disorder resulting from disturbances in uterine functions. Actually, the symptoms of conversion disorder may develop in either sex and may occur in children and elderly people, although they are observed most commonly in early adult life.
Conversion disorder, in its clinically pure form, seems to occur more often among individuals who have a history of child abuse or who have experienced a traumatic event. The incidence of conversion disorder appears to be diminishing in many areas of the world, probably because of factors such as increasing mental health awareness. Cases of classical conversion disorder, such as those frequently described by 19th-century clinicians, have become rare. Most psychoneuroses encountered in actual clinical practice are apt to be “mixed” forms in which symptoms of conversion disorder may be found interspersed with other varieties of neurotic disturbances. Isolated conversion disorder symptoms may also occur in conjunction with psychotic disorders.
The sensory and motor manifestations of conversion disorder take many forms and are designated conversion reactions because the underlying anxiety is assumed to have been “converted” into physical symptoms. Sensory disturbances may range from paresthesias (“peculiar” sensations) through hyperesthesias (hypersensitivity) to complete anesthesias (loss of sensation). They may involve the total skin area or any fraction of it, but the disturbances generally do not follow any anatomic distribution of the nervous system. In medieval times in Europe and as late as the end of the 17th century, the finding of such discrete areas of anesthesia on the body of a person was considered proof that the person was a witch. Other sensory disturbances associated with conversion disorder may encompass the special senses of vision, hearing, taste, or smell; or they may involve the experiencing of severe pain for which no organic cause can be determined.
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Motor symptoms vary from complete paralysis to tremors, tics, contractures, or convulsions. In each instance neurological examination of the affected part of the body reveals an intact neuromuscular apparatus with normal reflexes and normal electrical activity and responses to electrical stimulation. Other motor disturbances that are at times associated with conversion disorder are loss of speech (aphonia), coughing, nausea, vomiting, or hiccuping.
Psychic symptoms may be equally varied and are usually classified under the broad heading of dissociative reactions. Attacks of amnesia, in which the person is unable to remember who he is or anything about himself, are among the more striking of these. Sleepwalking (somnambulism) is also considered to be a dissociative reaction, as are also the occasional dramatic cases of multiple personality. (See mental disorder: Dissociative disorders.)
Treatment of conversion disorder involves psychotherapy, the focus of which is to bring to the patient’s consciousness those feelings, ideas, and conflicts that are causing the symptoms. Support and reassurance from the therapist and the patient’s family and friends are important components of therapy. (See also mental disorder: Conversion disorder.)