Who gets Munchausens syndrome and how is it caused?
The illness usually begins in early adult life, though some have a history of faking illness in childhood. As with Susie, there is often a trigger incident involving loss, rejection or abandonment. Most have been in hospitals before, for a genuine illness, or have a close relative who was hospitalised; the more experience of hospitals, the better the faking. People with factitious disorders usually have a normal, or even above average IQ. Their childhood history may reveal early deprivation of love, serious illness or disability which made doctors and nurses their major caregivers, and often a mother or father who is perceived by the patient as rejecting them. By seeking the love of hospital staff, but also inevitably their rejection when faking is exposed, the person revisits or repeats the scene of his or her childhood experience. (Freud called this the “repetition compulsion”). So although the behaviour is voluntary, it has a compulsiveness about it too. More men than women are diag
