Dissociative and Conversion Disorders: Hysteria, ICD-10 F44, Non-Epileptic Seizures and Medically Unexplained Symptoms

A year-three psychiatry lecture by Dr Nick Medford of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, externally authored and not a KMTC lecture. It opens with a case history, then the history of the concept from hysteria and Aretaeus the Cappadocian through Charcot at the Salpetriere to the Viennese mind-magic theories and why they are largely untestable. It gives the ICD-10 F44 definition, dissociation as disruption of the usually integrated consciousness, memory and identity, detachment versus compartmentalization, incidence and prevalence, how conversion differs from feigning and factitious disorder, psychogenic non-epileptic seizures against epilepsy, medically unexplained symptoms, and a pragmatic approach.