BMJ  2005;331:1145 (12 November), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7525.1145-b

Letter

Misdiagnosis of conversion symptoms

We may have gone full circle

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—I am puzzled that a systematic review of cases misdiagnosed as hysteria or conversion disorder fails to refer, even briefly, to the complex history of this neurosis.1

In their discussion the authors write: "In the study of misdiagnosis of conversion symptoms or hysteria the overall pooled proportion for the whole period was 8.4% (7.1% to 9.9%). This overall figure, however, disguises a change over time from 29% in the 1950s and 17% in the 1960s to a consistently low rate of 4% for every decade since then."

The drop from 29% in the '50s to 4% over the past three decades seems dramatic. However, it more or less coincides with the precipitous fall from grace in psychiatry of psychoanalytic schools of thought and the emerging dominance of biological psychiatry that occurred in the mid-60s. Thus, the high rates of misdiagnosis that are alleged to have occurred in the . . . [Full text of this article]

John F Corish, medical practitioner

Dublin 15, Republic of Ireland corishjohn@hotmail.com


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Relevant Article

Systematic review of misdiagnosis of conversion symptoms and "hysteria"
Jon Stone, Roger Smyth, Alan Carson, Steff Lewis, Robin Prescott, Charles Warlow, and Michael Sharpe
BMJ 2005 331: 989. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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