Meaning & use
Munchausen syndrome
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountablemedical
A mental health condition in which a person deliberately invents or causes illness in themselves to gain attention and medical care.
Grammar: Usually has no article: she was diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome.
Patterns
- suffer from Munchausen syndrome
- a case of Munchausen syndrome
The doctors eventually suspected Munchausen syndrome when the symptoms vanished whenever she was not observed.
He was treated for Munchausen syndrome after repeatedly harming himself to get admitted to hospital.
Munchausen syndrome is rare and hard to diagnose because patients are skilled at hiding the deception.
noununcountableinformalfigurative
Used loosely for a pattern of lying about or exaggerating illness to win sympathy, without a formal diagnosis.
Grammar: Informal and not clinically precise: people joked about his Munchausen syndrome.
Her coworkers whispered about Munchausen syndrome because she announced a new illness every month.
Calling it Munchausen syndrome in a forum post is unfair if nobody has actually been diagnosed.
Common combinations
- diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome
- She was diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome after a long investigation.
- suspected Munchausen syndrome
- Nurses suspected Munchausen syndrome when the test results did not match his story.
- a case of Munchausen syndrome
- It was the first case of Munchausen syndrome the clinic had seen.
- Munchausen syndrome by proxy
- Munchausen syndrome by proxy involves harming someone else, usually a child, to seek attention.
Synonyms and how they differ
- factitious disorder
- This is the current formal clinical term, and doctors prefer it because it avoids the old eponym.
- hypochondria
- A hypochondriac sincerely fears being ill, whereas Munchausen syndrome involves deliberately faking or causing illness.
- malingering
- A malingerer fakes illness for an outside gain such as avoiding work, while Munchausen syndrome is driven by a need for attention and care.
Word family
- Munchausen adjective
- used before nouns, as in a Munchausen patient
- factitious adjective
- artificially created, not genuine
- syndrome noun
- a set of symptoms that occur together
Commonly confused: Munchausen syndrome or hypochondria?
Munchausen syndrome vs hypochondria
A person with hypochondria truly believes they are ill. In Munchausen syndrome the person knows the illness is invented or self-caused.
Practice
Which description best fits Munchausen syndrome?
Choose one answer.
Munchausen syndrome means deliberately producing or faking illness to gain attention. Fearing real illness describes hypochondria, and faking sickness for a practical benefit is malingering.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Munchausen syndrome”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.