I saw my therapist today. He thinks I have munchausens. I’ve always joked about it but never thought much of it. I’m not sure what this means as far as treatment and such.
I think the answer isn’t about the diagnosis. It is to realize that you sabotage yourself on a regular basis. Forget about the diagnostic terms. You know the pattern and process and you know it causes you pain. That is enough. What is the difference what we call it? The bottom line is that there is a dysfunctional pattern, it brings you a great deal of grief, and the good news is that your distress has prompted a very healthy desire in you to change. Let’s work with that. All too often the emphasis is on the diagnosis, of what is wrong with us. Let’s start in a different place. Let’s ask what is happening in your life that is right. In other words, what are your strengths?
I would find a local therapist to work with (see the find help tab at the top of the page) and see if he or she can help you identify times when this destructive pattern occurred — but more importantly, try to find out when it isn’t operating, or when good things are happening in your life. Often there are positive patterns that emerge alongside the negative ones. Let’s see what they are.
In preparing for this you may want to look at the character strength survey. It is free and can help you identify what your strengths are, and how to build on them. If we don’t look to amplify our strengths, then all we are left with is a battle to stop symptoms.
We describe a case of factitious disorder with physical and psychological symptoms comorbid with bipolar I disorder in a 37-year-old woman...
We here analyse her mood phases, which were always associated with changes in the quality of factitious symptoms, according to whether the disorder was in its depressive phase (somatic complaints and suicidal ideation prevail), or in its manic or mixed phase (medical intervention-seeking and manipulation of clinicians to obtain surgical interventions).
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