What Is Munchausen Syndrome?

While hypochondriacs sincerely believe they either have or are at a high risk of developing a disease, people with Munchhausen Syndrome are in a completely different category. They know the symptoms they talk about are either ones they faked or ones they only have because they caused those symptoms themselves. While they pretend to have diseases, illnesses, emotional or cognitive disorders they don't actually have, they ironically really are ill: Munchausen Syndrome is a mental illness that falls on the spectrum of factitious disorders. 

What's The Deal With Munchausen?

Named after the literary character Baron von Munchausen, an 18th-century German officer who liked to tell tall tales, Munchausen Syndrome patients have an inner need to have others see them as ill in order to get reassurance, sympathy, or attention. It's important to note that people with Munchausen Syndrome aren't scam artists: those who pretend to be ill for financial or other concrete gain don't qualify for this diagnosis. The underlying issue is an emotional need. [4]

People with Munchausen Syndrome embellish or make up symptoms to gain the attention of medical professionals and others, and are often willing to subject themselves to painful medical tests, invasive procedures, or take extreme measures to create symptoms that didn't previously exist. Like hypochondriacs, they may tell the people in their lives all about their medical worries, all the time. Unlike hypochondriacs, they are aware that they don't have the disease they pretend to have, and they inflicted the symptoms they have on themselves.

Munchausen Syndrome Symptoms

How can you tell whether someone you know has Munchausen Syndrome? The diagnosis can only be made by qualified health professionals, but here are some of the warning signs:

• An extremely dramatic and often varied medical history.
• A history of seeing many different medical professionals for the same problem, but not wanting those professionals to communicate with each other or with relatives and friends.
• Symptoms that get worse, rather than better, with treatment.
• Extensive medical knowledge. 
• Symptoms get worse after negative medical test results.
• Being extremely willing to undergo numerous medical tests.
• Dramatic symptoms occur in private without witnesses.
• Self-esteem and identity issues. 

Munchausen Syndrome Vs Hypochondria

What are the key differences between hypochondriacs and those with Munchausen Syndrome, then? Hypochondriacs are genuinely worried or convinced they have a disease, while those with Munchausen Syndrome are in it for sympathy and attention, and can go to extreme lengths to make themselves sick. They are quite aware, meanwhile, that they are fabricating their own symptoms, either physically or by lying.