Podcast
Sword and Scale
Dr. Mark Feldman, a clinical professor of psychiatry, was interviewed regarding his expertise in Munchausen Syndrome, and he discussed the possibility of Munchausen by Proxy in the case of Morgan Ingram.
I'm Dr. Mark Feldman, I'm a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the author of three books on munchausen syndrome which I've been studying for aroun...
— Episode: Episode 12
Episode: Episode 12
Dr. Mark Feldman, a clinical professor of psychiatry, was interviewed regarding his expertise in Munchausen Syndrome, and he discussed the possibility of Munchausen by Proxy in the case of Morgan Ingram.
I'm Dr. Mark Feldman, I'm a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the author of three books on munchausen syndrome which I've been studying for around 25 years.
When I say munchausen syndrome that includes factitious disorder, munchausen syndrome itself and then the form of child abuse called munchausen by proxy.
In munchausen syndrome a person either feigns, exaggerates or actually self induces illness and that illness can be psychological or physical because they're after attention and nurturance and sympathy.
Then we have munchausen by proxy where a person does the same thing, they lie about illness or they actually induce illness but it involves another person typically a child so in the usual case it would be a parent, a mother specifically who either lies about her child being sick or actually makes the child sick in some way.
She then presents the child for medical treatment while denying any knowledge of how the child became ill in the first place and as a result these children can undergo dozens of diagnostic procedures and surgeries with all the risks that go along with that.