Talk:Conversion disorder

message: Calmer and more useful than my previous comment.
There have been repeated suggestions that there be a section concerning controversies.  Why not just use the DSM-IV, if that is permissible within copyright, and then a section on history and competing theories.  As things stand there is no reason for anyone new working on the article, to the point that I don't want to even move things around.  
Comments?
--Kovar (talk) 01:22, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Could this be resolved, please?

message: I was doing some casual research and came across this page.  Since I sometimes work on Wikipedia I looked at the history.  There has to be some better way of putting it but I am appalled, and appalled beyond belief.  As a peer, as a patient, as a publisher, as a researcher, as a . . . 
I did the research both inside and outside Wikipedia then went for a walk to calm down.  I thought that I'd succeeded but instead had to put the draft over on my own pages.  I'm keeping this brief, thus perhaps useless, because otherwise I would go on at length.  Those notes might be a useful starting place if you decided to step back and see your actions from the view of someone needing an encyclopedia.
--Kovar (talk) 06:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enough 

message: A hyphen should never be used when an ndash or an mdash is meant.
Example of a hyphen: dumb-dork.   Example of an ndash: 1984 -- 2001.
Example of an mdash: This could be the moment--- or maybe not.
Rory Coker
(Sorry if this is in the wrong place) Am I the only one who doesn´t understand the very first sentence in this article: "Conversion disorder is a condition where patients present with neurological symptoms such as numbness, paralysis, or fits, but where positive physical signs of hysteria can be found."
Thomas B.
It's been taken care of.  --Kovar (talk) 06:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Grammar!

message: Could 82.26.155.12 please register? It would make it much easier to discuss some of the edits you have made recently. I think there's some interesting stuff in there but bits of it could be interpreted as POV. I'm doing a little bit of preliminary research in this area and might be able to provide some more references.
--PaulWicks 19:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Anonymous edits

message: Here's the provocative paragraph in question:
NB: 
The existence of this as a disorder is now largely discredited (see Richard Webster's "Why Freud was Wrong"). It remains as a diagnosis of convenience however with its chief proponents being Jon Stone And Michael Sharpe.
To quote Stone himself "The truth is we do not know what is causing these symptoms". In the light of this and current research showing disruptions in blood flow within the brain science is at last reaching towards the realisation first envisaged by Charcot that functional symptoms were in fact organic in origin and not caused by repressed emotions or emotional trauma. Indeed since as Stone's research shows most patients are more distressed by their symptoms than any hypothesised stressor the diagnosis appears more and more a historical anachronism.
EDITING IN PROGRESS
I've reverted this for the time being.  One of the problems is that a single source is being used to "discredit" centuries of prior work.  Believe it or not, there is more than Jon Stone's point of view to consider when considering the issue of conversion disorder.
Another problem is that the citations are inadequate.  To cite a work, at a minimum the following must be included: author, title, publisher, and year of publication.  Without this information, other editors cannot verify the citation.
This is an exciting time for those interested in the organic basis of psychiatric disease.  I share the anonymous contributor's excitement and strongly desire to see the cutting-edge of research included in this article - in a well-referenced verifiable way compatible with the usual Wikipedia style guidelines.  -ikkyu2 (talk)
I agree. Just last Friday I attended the British Neuropsychiatry Association annual conference where a whole afternoon was devoted to functional movement disorders which included presentations by Alan Carson, Jon Stone, Günther Deuschl, Christopher Bass, and Ned Shorter. I will take the liberty of emailing them for their input if they would like to join our endeavour.
--PaulWicks 09:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anonymous edits, part the second 

message: Sorry folks but conversion disorder is a condition invented by Freud. Charcot was looking for an organic cause to the symptoms he faced. Prior to this the condition, hysteria, was seen as predominantly as female illness. It was viewed by Hippocrates as having an organic basis- problems with blood flow in the brain. Recent research supports this (I'll look up the reference). There is absolutely NO emotional aetiology behind these symptoms. Stone and Sharpe live in the same diagnostic land as Freud. Their phenomenological understanding of the condition is muddled in the extreme. To say "the truth is we do not know what is causing these symptoms" (Stone) then to hypothesise a psychogenic cause based on flawed Freudian ideas is not science. Ironically the neurologist Arthur Hurst working in 1st World War had a more profound understanding of symptoms classified as "hysterical". He saw them as essentially shadows on the brain caused by disorders of attention or volition. He even hypothesises the organic basis behind this. To assert emotional causes converted into the physical is to sink back into the dark ages of cartesian dualism. Read Webster's "Why Freud Was Wrong" for a comprehensive review of the misdiagnosis of hysteria and the flawed thinking behind conversion disorder.
-----
Suppose one of these days your left arm becomes numb, you feel strong palpatations, start sweating profusely, feel chest pains and faint dead away.  Furthermore, you are rushed to the ER only to have the doctors tell you you are just fine.  Of course, you will argue and protest and pay an arm and a leg for second opinions and tests on fabulous machines that go "piiiiiiiing" only to discover there really is nothing wrong with you. Maybe then you will finally be cured of your cheap scorn.  
I would give you a URL to psychogenic heart attacks, but the only medical articles with that title on the web are hidden from public view in order to protect the lambs.  However, the following might provide you with some fun edification:
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Heart-Disease/EKG-showing-false-previous-heart-attack/show/253796
Or maybe you will discover the joys of migraine headaches and take matters into your own hands, paying an arm and a leg for eeg's and MRI's and whatnot, again only to discover there is nothing wrong with you. 
Or maybe some morning you will wake up with a stiffy.  Then maybe you will finally start to understand the connection between mind and body. Izeenossink (talk) 21:24, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misunderstood history 

message: This article, as written, is terrible.  It is heavily biased, gives no introduction, and does not directly define what a conversion disorder is.  Had I not already known the definition, I would have been completely lost.  Heavy editing is needed, along with introductory material.  A total re-write may not be unwarranted.  March 25, 2006
This article, as has been updated, is now worse. I will ask for contributions from more writers as at present we seem to have a bit of a quagmire... --PaulWicks 11:25, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bias

message: Definition now included. I agree it still needs editing to clarify that conversion disorders are disorders of attention and volition. Conversion disorder as put forward by Freud simply does not exist. To claim otherwise is to be ignorant of the history behind its diagnosis, in particular to be ignorant of Freud and Charcot (Le Log is also considered to have suffered from organic disease). Most neurologists freely admit they "cannot get a handle on the cause of these symptoms" (Bateman). I would assert along with Webster that the jump to an emotional aetiology is historic rather than scientific. 
I therefore think the article is not biased at all and with minor edits to clarify meaning should stand. The original article was very inaccurate. An archaeology of the disorder supports this as already stated. It also has references to the unconscious, the existence of which in its modern and Freudian sense is phenomenologically doubtful (Binswanger, Heidegger also Dennett for alternative models).
From an evolutionary point of view there is also the question as to how a disorder which supposedly afflicts 40% of neurological referrals could persist at all. Neuro-paeleontology demonstrates that there are no differences between the CNS of ourselves and our neolithic ancestors. Thus faced with an acute stressor neolithic man converts this emotion into functional weakness and is too slow to run away from the tiger. Is the secondary gain the sympathy of his peers as he is eaten?  Remember that with Functional weakness we are talking about real changes in tone and movement. It would perhaps be helpful to carry out a study of functional (as in of undetermined aetiology OED) symptoms in other mammals, especially chimpanzees. Humans are not uniquely conscious after all.
: But how about irritable bowel syndrome, for example? (Even recognizing that it has also a neurophysiological explanation). The neolithic man would suffer from abdominal pain and other symptoms, if he has to run away from animals too frequently? I don't think we can compare; even if the CNS is the same, the environment (all facets of it) is too different..--Guruclef 09:28, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  It does now! 

message: Hi guys, I've tried to integrate both Alpinists' and Boris' information. I think we should resist doing total reverts as there will always be some good information and importantly hard work that is lost each time. I would request for the time being that we let this article cool down for a bit and focus on improving the quality of the references; at the moment they suck! If you take a look at the references at Orbitofrontal cortex I would suggest they would be a good way to go. A full explanation is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CITE#Complete_citations_in_a_.22References.22_section, and the templates are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Template_messages/Sources_of_articles/Generic_citations. Alternatively just see what I did on Orbitofrontal cortex and do some copy-pasting. Enjoy!--PaulWicks 13:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update and reverts 

message: I think Paul has done a great job here
Simon 15:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Much better

message: Whilst I agree in principle with "be bold", I think this article tends to be rather stop-start in terms of someone making a contribution and it being reverted almost immediately. This is fine in the case of vandalism, but not in the case of someone's hard work and effort which were well intentioned. In my opinion WalkerTexasRngr has made some good contributions that add to a lay person's understanding of what psychiatrists mean when they say conversion disorder. If in another editor's opinion his contributions lack clarity then the proper step must surely be to increase the clarity, not to remove them all together? --PaulWicks 21:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reversions

message: It is so badly written as it stands- Key Stage 3 in style, fragmented and confused. An article can become so lengthy as to be worthless. Hard work is no substitute for good work. Do psychiatrist's really know what they mean when they say "conversion disorder"??  etymologically I don't think so. 
Simonalpinist
Hi Simon. Whilst I agree there is not much flow between different paragraphs I think it's also important to recognise that editors may feel reluctant to contribute when it's likely to end in a revert war. --PaulWicks 08:15, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: So badly written

message: There's quite a good video of this available through a search on yahoo
http://uk.wrs.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9ibyJKeKJpETxEAcVR1BQx./SIG=13fsbnusm/EXP=1151040030/**http%3a//education.hsc.wvu.edu/som/psych3/charleston-pbl/schizophrenia_and_other_psychoti.htm
Supposed 05:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video 

message: The part on Aetiology is terrible, would it be possible to add references, the bacterial hypothesis sounds interesting but how prooven is it?  Also other possible causes should be stated is they exist in the litterature.  In its present form this section is biased and badly referenced.  Also wikipedia should not be the place to advertise forthcoming publications, please use accessible sources. By using forthcoming publications and manuscripts in preparation one can also write an article about the habits of unicorns living on the dark side of the moon...
JMB
Once upon a time there was a unicorn who lived on the dark side of the moon. Unfortunately a lunar lander decided to make its descent above the place where the unicorn was grazing. Paralysed by fear the unicorn was unable to move. Luckily the astronaut piloting the lander noticed the unicorn at the last moment and avoided a collision. However the unicorn still failed to move and indeed is there to this day turned to stone.
Moral- psychic events do not extend beyond the moment at which in heideggerian terms they are at hand. Only In fairy tales are thinfs frozen to stone by fear. In reality the longevity of so called conversion symptoms beyond the hypothesised stressor is an indicator, as slater realised of the false nature of any suggestion of relation.
Fair point on references- the neuropsychiatric nature of lyme disease is well documented. There is also of course Hughes syndrome and a myriad other disorders that mimic conversion symptoms. Hence the well documented work of B. Hyde in "The difficulties of diagnosis" in both finding organic symptoms and treating them in "conversin disorder" patients.
I'll try and find time to include the references. I think you can quote forthcoming publications- readers can use judgement and in a reasonable span time forthcoming will be a specific ISBN.
SJO
---
Masterful polemics, but a little weak on substance.  Everybody has opinions on Freud without bothering to read what he had to say.  The book "Studies On Hysteria" by Breuer and Freud was primitive stuff--pre-psychoanalysis by five years; and yet this is the book that Freud's opponents read in order to attack him.  Such attacks are dumb and juvenile.  Anyone who wishes to argue against the etiology of conversion disorder has to read his post 1900 work. As it stands, the arguments presented here are really fatuous stuff. It's impossible to intelligently address such cranky knuckleheaded rhetoric without laughing.  Snud (talk) 07:51, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting but please quote sources 

message: As a medicine student, I can tell you that this diagnosis, as vague as it may seem, is very real. It's not an excuse for not knowing the real diagnosis, but rather, the (extreme) realization that a patient's illness is not only cells and organs malfunctioning. Nowadays, medicine is all about treating the person instead of the body; the mind, and even the environment, must be taken into account. And sometimes, what's wrong with the patient is not in the tissues but in his mind. We've all felt not only pain, but many weird sensations when under extreme stress or emotions, and in the same way, other processes can affect neurological function of the body (remember that nerves, hormones, and immune system cells, each have ways to communicate between sub-systems of the body). It's true that this is not a common diagnosis, and must be made only after exclusion of other possibilities, but most medicine students (and of course doctors) will see it more than once or twice during their lives. --Guruclef 09:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You, sir, are and idiot. 86.139.151.109 (talk) 21:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  My opinion 

message: Dear all, in light of my very peripheral involvement with a functional movement disorder clinic I'm going to have another go at this article over the next couple of days. Regular editors please please please give me a couple of days to find sources etc before reverting. I intend to make the referencing style consistent, integrate some newer papers, and perhaps get some other editors involved.
Thanks
---------
--PaulWicks 18:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Having a go at this article again

message: Dear all,
In resposne to requests for improvements on this article to be made by someone with appropriate experience, please allow modifications on this article to be maintained over the next few days; some content will have to be cut before new stuff can be added.
Many thanks --PaulWicks (talk) 18:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Another attempt at improving this article

message: Dear Paul,
Thank you for that. In order to preserve the NPOV this article could contain a section to allow those with a completely contrary view (i.e. conversion disorder does not exist) to have their (proportionate) say if they wish. Otherwise the article does need a lot of improvement to reflect the commonly described features of this condition (for example, that found at 'emedicine') and its history. I agree it will be helpful to cut it back first before adding too much - Boris69 (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There seems to be a lot of room for improvement. The article as it is contains many weird views. Is there any evidence at all regarding the (non-)existence of this disorder? Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Many accepted diagnoses have no evidence to their existence, so that doesn't say much. Guido den Broeder (talk) 00:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

text: If you have any sources, present them, so we can judge that for ourselves. Guido den Broeder (talk) 01:29, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm just going to work on cleaning up the references now.--PaulWicks (talk) 22:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Agree

message: During the course of editing the article and chasing down references, I have found that at least some of the text now being edited somewhat has been copied from this website: http://www.psychological.com/conversion.htm
Would all editors please be aware of the guidelines on copyright violations e.g. WP:REF--PaulWicks (talk) 23:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Potential copyvio

message: I found that as well- the truth is they have lifted the article from wikipedia. Which considering their status is rather worrying. I tell my students NEVER EVER USE WIKIPEDIA. This is general policy in education and most schools are banned from editing by wikipedia anyway.
JFW said something about Weird ideas? This seems to sum up wikipedia- just as someone said a platypus was an animal designed by committee. In terms of sociolinguistics it is so naive as to be laughable no POV- absurd!!! - I'll leave that to another JFW fan though. The last version was not written by one person.  I do think the article is moving in the right direction.
Speaking of weird ideas lets start with judaism and progress through a virgin for every martyr in Islam to Jesus taking off like a space rocket. (In other words I heard that JFW and I thought you didn't do personal attacks!!!) and also- the world is full of odd ideas like Freud and conversion disorder- but I will leave the social anthropology to someone else also..
Have fun JFW- this is POV and coat-hanger so I award you the barnstar of broccoli for wielding cabbage in order to further your own rhubarb
Interesting you should suddenly pop up on this page???  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.31.201 (talk) 17:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: lifted from wikipedia

message: Dear Sirs, Paul Wicks and colleagues
It was once put to me that a neurologist is a bit like a car mechanic- he lifts up the bonnet and can find nothing wrong even though he might freely admit that the engine is not working properly. It is suggested by Sharpe and others that such analogies are a good start in building a therapeutic consensus with ultimate referral to a psychiatrist. Other metaphors also abound, software error for example. The ultimate failure of this article is manifold. It may be moving in the right direction in that we have some acknowledgement of the biological basis of these symptoms, there is obviously enormous distance still to be travelled in this direction. Shorter may state that a patient's demand for organicity and a physician's willingness to meet it condemns them to perpetual disability, such a value judgement is of course spurious in the extreme.
If I take my car to a mechanic I would rapidly lose confidence in his abilities if he was unable to uncover why the brakes did not work. Similarly any IT consultant who described the brain as a "computer" would ultimately gather equal derision- the brain is not a computer. With over 50 trillion cells in the human body the diagnosis of conversion disorder can never be more than one of arrogance and ignorance. Hysteria is not a theatre of disorder because patients are play acting, rather they are desperately trying to interpret the often vague warning lights from the body and brain that some of those 50 trillion cells are not working as they should, damaged diseased etc. Once organicity is recognised patients are liberated from the worry of suffering and the social attempt to convince others that they are actually ill. Their suffering is no longer played out within a cultural milieu of desperation and recourse to thearpists like Mesmer, Carson, Sharpe or Freud but rather it is understood in the context of measurable organic anomalies. Anomalies that they themselves can work to live with or overcome.
Frans De Waal informs me that persistent and long term "conversion symptoms" do not exist in primates. Like children apes may pretend to be hurt or feel weak when faced with fear but such aspects are transitory. Extreme emotional events may cause many diseases to be manifest, heart attack and stroke to name but two. It is only in conversion disorder that neurology and psychiatry, seemingly isolated within medicine, pursue the psychosocial at the expense of the biological. Carson, Sharpe and others view illness in others as a child-like act. We as a species are still children, Rita Carter has said that the map of the human brain is more akin to medieval maps of the world. Thus faced with a lack of understanding of ourselves and by others we do indeed act oddly, even immaturely when faced with illness we do not understand. This notion is not new: "Variability is the law of life, and as no two faces are the same, so no two bodies are alike, and no two individuals react alike and behave alike under the abnormal conditions which we know as disease. Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability." William Osler, Canadian Physician. What is new is the seeming willingness to embrace a psychosocial model at the expense of the biopsychosocial. 
Blake depicted Newton as a demonic figure measuring all with his compasses. I accuse neurology of the reverse, it fails to use the compasses at its disposal, it decries the technological investigation of patients, it marginalizes cutting edge technology rather than embrace it. "No neurologist in the UK uses QEEG". Yet Prof. Duffy, neurologist at Harvard is quite happy to use it to benefit and liberate HIS patients from the stigma of not finding anything wrong. 
Ahh yes my engine is indeed intact- but take it for a spin and you will find the oil is not circulating properly and the wheels fall off as you forgot to check the bolts- to do so would have only convinced me that there was something wrong, when of course in your opinion everything was A ok.
Finally I applaud you all. In a consumer market where the internet, social networking, even simply money can all buy that second opinion- it is a sure way to lose patients by writing an article that does not present organicity as a fundamental part of this spectrum of symptoms, that does not even acknowledge that the DSM was born out of intense controversy, more psychiatric cook book than scientific analysis. Unless the article is radically developed towards the controversy of these symptoms then even more patients will find it irrelevant to any discussion they could have with a neurologist  or psychiatrist. Emily Dickinson said "Truth is Manifold". Alas on wikipedia truth is the school boy who can shout loudest, seem the cleverest, pass all the exams by putting down what sir told him to- yet in fact have not a single original  idea in their head.
Sufferer of POTS with technological evidence of peripheral neuropathy in bladder and bowel also provisional suggestion of peripheral motor neuropathy in legs (may have yet more tests, further tests on bladder as neuropathy was severe). All initially diagnosed as conversion disorder despite family history of vascular defects etc, shouted at by one neurologist, victim of spurious freudian nonsense at the hand of another etc, etc.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.109.36 (talk) 12:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could we increase the signal:noise ratio of future diatribes please? Some of us are busy. --PaulWicks (talk) 19:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is well known that the sum of all knowledge is 42. Of course, that is after conversion. Guido den Broeder (talk) 19:31, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: the sum of all knowledge

message: Dear all, I am conscious that this article is continually going back and forth and I think we should try and pin down some of the points of contention. To be clear about my own position, I think conversion disorder is a  name applied by doctors to any number of things that they don't understand. In some cases these will be undiagnosed "organic" medical conditions. However, in other cases, and I've seen a few of them in neurology clinics, some people come in with what are clearly "functional" disorders. What I mean by that is that some process is making them walk funny, or be unable to move a part of their body properly, but not in a way that is associated with any known "medical" disorder. Sometimes their reports are inconsistent, so for instance they might present with a paralysed arm, and yet objective measurement shows it's clearly not paralysed. In that case (and again, I've seen a couple and heard of several more), the only remaining explanation is psychological. I don't mean they're faking it; it's often very distressing, sometimes even more so than a known neurological disorder. What I mean is I think that the mind can do amazing things; I've seen martial artists do incredible things with their bodies via the powe of the mind, and it seems obvious to me that that same mechanism pointed in a negative direction could potentially cause weakness or even paralysis. To me, the idea that these things may be psychological is not a cause for shame or stigma, but a positive thing. Thank goodness it's not motor neurone disease, or Huntington's, where there's little we can do. 
So, to the article. Let's be clear: I'm not a Freudian. We didn't cover him for more than 10 minute in my psychology degree and I'm not interested in psychodynamics. I'm interested in neuroscience. I'm not a fan of drives, ids, etc, but that doesn't mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. The fact that some of these problems coincide with a trauma or stressful live event does suggest there may be some relationship between the two. 
What does fMRI establish? Nothing really. If CBT can change my fMRI profile then BOLD signal alterations don't really prove whether something is "organic" or not. After all, the mind is not a special case. It's composed of just the same goop as everything else in the world. If I'm traumatised, I have a physical response and an emotional response. They're both real, one is not more "organic" than the other. 
My understanding is that Simon (Alpinist) was diagnosed with conversion disorder, but it later turned out to be something else. Yes it's a stigmatising diagnosis and in the absence of a great deal of knowledge about conversion, a lot of doctors were probably quite unkind/unhelpful. But now that he's got this other diagnosis, why the obsession with conversion disorder? Just because his case was an incorrect diagnosis, it doesn't mean that a.) other people don't have it, b.) it doesn't exist, or c.) everyone with "psych-" in their job title is an evil git. 
Why do I revert edits made by Simon (and partner)? Because they rely upon personal knowledge that is not verifiable by others, they tend to make flippant references to things that are not explained in the article itself and are relevant only to a handful of people in the world that know the ins and outs of this debate, and they muddy the waters for anyone reading the article as it is meant to be read, as an article in an encyclopedia. He's already got conversiondisorder.com to say absolutely whatever he likes. Why persist in trying to change this article which is finally getting some attention from a psychiatrist (Snargett) whose committing several years of his life to trying to discover more about conversion and actually trying to treat it properly and get more attention for it in the NHS? If you want to do something useful with your spare time, set up a charity for people diagnosed with conversion disorder. They don't have any real guidance or support and it's a lot more productive than pointless revert wars on Wikipedia. Thanks. --PaulWicks (talk) 16:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent edits / reverts

message: Just for the record I failed all tests for conversion disorder but was still told I had functional weakness/functional neurological deficit. Then Phil Nichols the neurologist I saw in Newcastle tried to find a psychiatrist who would agree with him that it was conversion disorder. With the intervention of Byron and Ian Gibson MP  I was found to have systemic autonomic failure. At this point Phil sought legal advice before releasing my notes- I have copies of all these letters. My new neurologist Dr. Gorman suspects SPG4 a type of motor neuron disease also. My case demonstrates that faced with a determined and intelligent patient neurologists and psychiatrists better be careful. Charcot's Bad Idea presents a socio-linguistic perspective on how conversion disorder is diagnosed and treated, ultimately as Slater stated it is a diagnosis of "ignorance and error". - Simon
---
Or, "systemic autonomic failure" may explain exactly as much as Charcot's coy "functional."  In reading the articles I can't help suspecting that somebody is obfuscating.  
Did you know that there has never been any physical evidence whatsoever that Bells Palsy is caused by nerve inflamation.  And yet everybody somberly proclaims it's not psychological.  Try to find neurological tests for Tourette's Syndrome or autism.  There are none.  And yet again, mainstream medicine provides truth by proclamation.  All this is neurological, and don't dare contradict that or you might offend crazy people.  
At least Freud never tried to make people think they had some illness without strong evidence. He always provided inferential evidence and undeniable logic within a flawless paradigm. 
People like you have been flailing about attacking Freud for over a century.  You think he would have really been dead by now.  Izeenossink (talk) 22:05, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: for the record Paul

message: In the article you don't explain what it IS, nor do you document any disease mechanism. The symptoms are vague and could be almost any disease. There is apparently no approved treatment that has any effect. There is NO scientific basis for this "disorder" whatsoever, only speculation. This is pseudoscience in a nutshell and the article ought to reflect that. T.R. 87.59.79.190 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 00:47, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't know what it is, it doesn't have a known disease mechanism, the symptoms ARE vague, and yes it could be almost any disease. There is no "approved" treatment other than psychotherapy and there is very little known about this disorder. That doesn't make it pseudoscience, that makes it an absence of science. But I've seen these patients, they exist, and nobody knows what to do with them. They're clearly suffering from something that would benefit from assistance but we don't know how to help them. They consume a lot of health resources that could be better spent doing other things. We owe them answers. There's no charity for them, they have no voice, they get very little consideration. This all regrettable, but it's true, and I don't think the Wikipedia article itself is the right place for a crusade. I wish there was more I could offer. --PaulWicks (talk) 13:08, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not absence of science either.  Karl Popper ended up backing off from his attacks on psychoanalysis after fellow mathemeticians kindly pointed out his errors. I got the impression he was sort of cavalier about the entire issue of "falsifiability."  It was as if he was playing games; pure pedantry. Psychoanalysis is as good as any so-called soft science, and I think it's better than most, because the benefits of it are tangible every day in the universality of psychotherapy Snud (talk) 10:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  But what IS IT? 

message: Just thought I'd pop by to note that sales of the book are doing very well, even used by Durham uni's anthropology department in a study on functional symptoms. So I think Mr. Wicks should eat his hat after his comments on blocking any mention of this book "vanity press" etc. It is now used by the academic establishment with one consultant neurologist commenting "many of my colleagues would be deeply interested in this book".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.125.148 (talk) 13:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I would just like to point out that Anthropology is not medicine and Neurology is not psychology.  If the neurologists have, in fact, found a positive test for all apparent conversion disorder symptoms, then they have a say in the renaming of a DSM IV (a manual of *mental* illness) term.  Otherwise, they don't.Snud (talk) 09:49, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Charcot's bad idea

message: There's another article on Functional weakness that seems to have a very similar definition:
:"Functional weakness is weakness of an arm or leg due to the nervous system not working properly.It is not caused by damage or disease of the nervous system."
versus:
:"Conversion disorder is a condition where patients present with neurological symptoms such as numbness, paralysis, or fits, but where no neurological explanation can be found."
This is a more complete, better structured article.  Should the other be merged into it? EastTN (talk) 19:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Neurologists prefer the term "functional" because it sounds better than saying "mentally ill."  Conversion is a well known mental illness, but "functional" simply implies that some peculiarity of the nervous system in particular cases is not yet understood by neurology.  Snud (talk) 00:46, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge Functional Weakness Into this Article? 

message: This is the link to the proposed revision in the upcoming DSM5.
http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=8#
The criteria are quite different, with psychological factors no longer a diagnostic necessity.Davalay (talk) 12:04, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  DSM 5 Revision and Renaming of Conversion Disorder to Functional Neurological Symptoms 

message: Just read through this a year on, sales of charcot's bad idea still doing well etc. I think the article fails to address how controversial this diagnosis is. It is by no means the case that even a majority of neurologists accept the diagnosis. My own neurologist believes in words stunningly similar to those of the writer Richard Webster that "modern medicine has inherited a legacy of misdiagnosis from Charcot and freud" most of her colleagues believe the same. To truly understand conversion disorder it is necessary to see it in its historical perspective- this article fails to do that and those contributors who were so keen to edit the article towards a "neo-con" view of the condition have not yet provided this framework. See "why Freud was wrong" for a more erudite discussion than my own work.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.128.78 (talk) 23:27, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  We should take a gallup poll to determine if a theory is valid or not?  Presuamably it is neurotics--especially neurotics who refuse to accept their mental illness in a desperate attempt to protect their psychological defenses--who are most interested in disproving Freud and Charcot. so they would naturally believe and accept the "logic" and "evidence" presented in such books. It might interest you to know that in his *Studies on Hysteria* Freud insisted that all conversion is triggered by a real affliction or injury, and the unconscious makes use of this, exaggerates it and maintains it long after the physical effects of the affliction have disappeared.108.38.96.28 (talk) 19:56, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: a year on

message: This tag has been there for nearly four years. But this claim is not dubious at all. It seems perfectly logically founded to me. However, it's possibly uncited and it does not significantly add to the article because the same claim is implied in the first (and cited) half of the sentence. Further, though it seems to be only a very small logical extension of the cited sources I believe it to be original research. If you disagree, discuss here. Johnathlon (talk) 19:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious tag in Exclusion of Neuro Dis. Subsection 

message: Conversion disorder is better written, better organized, and better referenced; it is also a more widely used term than Conversion syndrome.  Any thoughts? Ashleyleia (talk) 17:14, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Support. Both articles are basically about the same thing. Lova Falk talk 12:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

text: Good job! Lova Falk talk 14:15, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed merge of Conversion Syndrome into Conversion Disorder

message: Psychoanalytic treatment has been shown to help find a correlation between painful emotions/memories and Conversion disorderhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091899/. Psychoanalytic treatment also attempts to express these feelings to help lighten symptoms.
I believe that this would add a more up to date statement on treatment options on Conversion Disorder instead of saying that further trials are needed for all treatments.
Megaman12549 (talk) 03:45, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add a sentence on Psychoanalytic treatment to treatments section 

message: — Assignment last updated by Mjkim7 (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Wikipedia for the Medical Editor

message: — Assignment last updated by Sydrgalloway (talk) 02:25, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone