Paris syndrome is fake news :

https://web.archive.org/web/20110719120910/http://www.aphp.f...

"No, because if these people looked good in their own skin, it was only an appearance. Indeed, they already had slight mood disorders, or a general malaise, but which remained unexplained or unconscious. "During the consultation, there is often a history that goes unnoticed, which neither the patient nor those around him or her have been aware of. At that time, these people were somehow predisposed to psychic decompensation," explains Dr. Mahmoudia. And all it takes is a triggering factor for the pathology to reveal itself. Also, being in an unfamiliar environment can lead to a distressing experience and reveal certain disorders. However, the journey is not the only revelation. "The same type of disorder can also occur at home, following a completely different traumatic event such as the loss of a job, a break-up with a loved one, or an assault," adds Dr. Mahmoudia. But in the context of a trip, what would have been a "banal" depression takes on a much more dramatic expression.

In a second case, rare and more serious, the trip is part of the patient's delirium, it is part of a pre-existing psychiatric pathology. It is then described as a "pathological journey". Dr. Mahmoudia remembers this Japanese woman brought to the emergency room for behavioural disorders. "From Tokyo she said she heard the voice of the Virgin Mary begging her to come in front of the Notre-Dame de Paris church. In such a situation, the patient obeys the orders of a voice that he hears, but which is hallucinatory in nature and actually belongs to his own delirium. In other situations, the journey becomes an escape, a survival instinct. "Some patients have only one idea in mind: to flee at all costs from the haunting voice that persecutes them and prevents them from sleeping. Travel can therefore be a symptom, among others, of a pathology that is already known. "The journey then becomes part of a delirious process that belongs to the patient's psychiatric picture," concludes Dr. Mahmoudia.

These two situations are different. In one case, the journey is part of the patient's delirium, in the other, it is the triggering event of his pathology. But in both situations, Dr. Mahmoudia prefers to speak of pathological travel or travel-related psychopathology, rather than traveller's syndrome. The latter term is used incorrectly, as it originally defines a completely different situation. Also called "Stendhal syndrome", the traveller's syndrome is actually a state of ecstasy accompanied by a strong emotional charge when in contact with a work of art. This experience remains quite rare and affects the most sensitive souls. Their heart accelerates, they are taken by vertigo, they suffocate. And then they quickly come to their senses. This emotion is not a real psychological disorder and therefore does not lead to any particular treatment. It was Graziella Magherini, a Florentine psychiatrist who, in 1990, described for the first time this surprising syndrome linked to travelling in art cities. Surprised to receive emotionally shocked tourists, she wondered about the effects of an artistic overdose. She then made a link with Stendhal's travel diaries, which in 1817, on leaving the church of Santa Croce in Florence, reported: "I had arrived at that point of emotion where the heavenly sensations given by the Fine Arts and passionate feelings meet. On leaving Santa Croce, I had a heartbeat, life was exhausted at home, I walked with the fear of falling". These are certainly moving words, but they are not comparable to the emergency cases that Dr. Mahmoudia is able to meet in his consultation."