Recently, a stepfather who murdered his 5-year-old stepson was put on trial, and a mother who left her 15-month-old daughter unattended to death and put the body in a kimchi container and hid it for three years was arrested by the police. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Central Child Protection Agency, 132 children died from child abuse in the five years from 2014 to 2018. Most of the perpetrators were found to have suffered from unwanted pregnancy, lack of parenting knowledge, or extreme economic stress. However, there are cases in which child abuse is caused by the desire that one’s extreme care be widely known and noticed, and that the child suffering from a disease be completely emotionally subordinated to oneself. This is known as the “victorious Munchausen syndrome”.
Munchausen syndrome requires attention because it leads to child abuseㅣSource: Getty Image Bank
Pretending to be ill to get attention, ‘Munchausen Syndrome’
Munchausen Syndrome is a disease named following Baron Karl Friedrich Munchausen, the real-life protagonist of the fairy tale ‘The Adventures of the Baron Boggler’. Baron Munchausen was an 18th-century German soldier and bureaucrat who was a braggart who exaggerated fakes as facts or made up unbelievable words and actions to get people’s attention. American psychiatrist Richard Asher wrote in The Lancet, a medical journal in 1951, that the symptoms of mentally ill patients who constantly boast, exaggerate, and falsely claim their experiences are similar to those of Baron Munchausen, and named the disease following him. made with
In other words, Munchausen’s syndrome manipulates or acts as if he has a disease in order to gain sympathy in order to receive love and attention from others, and he feels physical pain as if he actually has a disease.
“Munchausen syndrome is a subgroup of factitious disorders that intentionally fake physical symptoms according to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria,” said Dr. Jeong Kwang-mo, a counselor at the Department of Psychiatry at Haidak (Seoul Top Psychiatric Clinic). Factitious disorder can only be diagnosed if there is no economic benefit, just for the purpose of arousing interest by playing the role of a patient.”
People with Munchausen syndrome often have a history of being rejected by their parents as children. It can also be caused by the experience of having suffered severe illness or deprivation in the past, and recovering with excessive care from someone. Many patients have poor identity and impaired self-image, which are hallmarks of borderline personality disorder. Sometimes you identify with the people around you. Munchausen syndrome is diagnosed when there is no clear external benefit, such as economic gain, avoidance of legal responsibility, or rest through malingering.
Symptoms of Munchausen syndrome include psychological depression, memory loss, hallucinations, and conversion disorder (defects in motor function or sensory function or physical symptoms resulting therefrom). There is also a tendency to answer ‘yes’ to all the symptoms the doctor asks in the clinic.
Physically, there have been reports of vomiting, abdominal pain, hemoptysis, rashes and abscesses throughout the body, fever, and bleeding following taking anticoagulants. Most of the symptoms appear within the scope of the individual’s knowledge and imagination.
‘I didn’t know because I was a devoted mother?’
“Surrogate Munchausen Syndrome”… A leading cause of child abuse
Sometimes, they try to use others to gain attention for themselves, which is called ‘proxy Munchausen syndrome’. It usually leads to child abuse crimes because they use people they can easily wield. The problem is that accurate diagnosis and treatment are not easy.
According to a paper titled ‘Munchausen Syndrome by Agent’ as a cause of child abuse by a research team from Chosun University published in the Korean Forensic Society on January 15th, ‘Munchausen Syndrome by proxy’ is a mental illness that leads to abuse and has three motives.
First of all, it is the desire to escape from the disagreement with your spouse. When a child is hospitalized, parents’ attention is focused on the child, so they can escape from conflict with their spouse. Another reason is to pursue a role such as ‘a devoted mother caring for a sick child’. Through this, we hope that others will respect and praise us. They work to gain loneliness, attachment, and status in the family. Whatever the reason, the result is obvious ‘child abuse’.
As a result of a study that investigated 796 perpetrators, 97.6% of the perpetrators were female, and 95.6% were found to be ‘mothers’. It is difficult to find special signs unless they live together because they always plant the perception that they are ‘caring mothers’ and ‘devoted mothers’ around them. In addition, even if suspected and diagnosed, proper treatment is difficult because the patient constantly lies.
Needs support and attention from family and friends
Treatment of patients with Munchausen syndrome begins with determining whether they actually have a physical disease, and the role of family and people around them is the most important. To do so, it is necessary to understand the characteristics of this disease well, and not to get caught up in the patient’s ever-changing complaints of symptoms, but to keep a proper distance and continue to support and encourage.
In addition, if the cause of the child’s disease or abnormal symptom is clearly known but hidden, or if the child is separated from the guardian and the disease is cured, a diagnosis of surrogate Munchausen syndrome should be considered.
Help = Head of Haidaq Counseling Doctor Jung Kwang-mo (Seoul Top Mental Health Clinic Psychiatry Specialist)
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