The involuntary nature of conversion disorder

Understanding Involuntary Emotional Expression Disorder

I nvoluntary emotional expression disorder (IEED) is a neurologic condition characterized by uncontrolled or exaggerated episodes of crying, laughing, or other emotional displays without an apparent stimulus to trigger such responses. Associated with a number of neurologic conditions, it is considered to be a disorder of disinhibition of emotional expression rather than a disturbance of feeling...

The Nature of Stress Disorder

Conversion disorder.

The diagnosis of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures has become easier with the assimilation of studies on the clinical categorization of seizure-like events (1), video EEG monitoring (2), measurement of serum prolactin (3), the selective use of neuropsychological tests (4), and various other diagnostic methods. Much less information is available to the clinician on what to do next. How should th...

Conversion disorder: the modern hysteria

All doctors have encountered patients whose symptoms they cannot explain. These individuals frequently provoke despair and disillusionment. Many doctors make a link between inexplicable physical symptoms and assumed psychiatric ill­ ness. An array of adjectives in medicine apply to symptoms without established organic basis – ‘supratentorial’, ‘psychosomatic’, ‘functional’ – and these are somet...

Conversion Disorder in Childhood

Background: Conversion disorder, a mental disorder characterized by the presence of multiple medically unexplained neurological symptoms and signs precipitated by psychological stress, occurs in childhood. Conversion disorder is more common in lower socioeconomic-class individuals who are medically naïve. Objective: To demonstrate the salient features of conversion disorder in childhood and to ...