Doctors Need to Get Better at Recognizing Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy

Whether fictional or fact-based, Munchausen syndrome by proxy grips the public. Media depictions in The Sixth Sense and Sharp Objects and real-life news coverage of Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s December 2023 release from jail are hard to look away from. The most well-known cases—real or dramatized—are often the starkest ones, but Munchausen by proxy comes in subtler, harder-to-detect forms too. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “The media are fascinated, but they tend to depict the most extreme cases,” says Dr. Marc D. Feldman, distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and author of Dying to Be Ill: True Stories of Medical Deception. So how do more health care providers develop the skills to recognize this form of medical child abuse and report it to the appropriate authorities?  What Is Munchausen by proxy? Munchausen by proxy “is a form of abuse in which a caregiver feigns, exaggerates, or induces illness in another person. Typically, the caregiver is the mother, and the victim is her child,” Feldman says. While this deception may result in tangible benefits—like disability funds or opioid medications the caregiver then abuses—the perpetrator’s primary motivation is typically attention, says Mary Sanders, a clinical psychology professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. You may hear this type of abuse referred to by many names. While it was once primaril...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance healthscienceclimate Source Type: news