A review of the medical history and literature that reflects on medical cultures reveals that there have always been people who have had unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms and experiences for which they sought explanations. In traditional psychiatric terms, these individuals might be diagnosed as having a somatization disorder, specifically a conversion disorder. Somatoform disorders are a group of disorders in which the essential features are physical symptoms suggesting physical illness for which there are no demonstrable organic findings to explain the symptoms.
Conversion disorder is a subtype of somatization disorder.
The early accounts of conversion disorder classically described major sensorimotor symptoms of paralyses, anesthesias, convulsions, and so on. While these are rarely seen today, one does see more subtle, but nonetheless debilitating, evidence of somatoform disease. One aspect of conversion disorder is the tendency of the symptoms to spread from one person to another. For example, early accounts of conversion disorders noted one patient after another on psychiatric wards developing the same hysterical symptoms initially manifested by another patient. Once the somatoform illness is ongoing, the individual usually reaps secondary gains which perpetuate the perceived disorder.