IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB778393839

Conversion Disorder and/or Functional Neurological Disorder: How Neurological Explanations Affect Ideas of Self, Agency, and Accountability (2020)

Brenninkmeijer, Jonna (Author)

History of the Human Sciences
Volume: 33
Issue: 5
Pages: 64-84
Publication date: 2020
Language: English

URI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695120963913

DOI: 10.1177/0952695120963913

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Diagnosis Psychosomatic medicine Mind and body Subjectivity Neurological diseases Agency (philosophy) Self-perception Neurology 21st century

An estimated 15% of patients seen by neurologists have neurological symptoms, such as paralysis, tremors, dystonia, or seizures, that cannot be medically explained. For a long time, such patients were diagnosed as having conversion disorder (CD) and referred to psychiatrists, but for the last two decades or so, neurologists have started to pay more serious attention to this patient group. Instead of maintaining the commonly used label of conversion disorder – which refers to Freud’s idea that traumatic events can be converted into deviant behaviour – these neurologists use the term functional neurological disorder (FND) and explain that the problems are due to abnormal central nervous system functioning. The situation that some patients with medically unexplained neurological symptoms are diagnosed with CD and treated by psychiatrists while others are diagnosed with FND and stay under the control of neurologists provides a unique case for analysing how neurological and psychological explanations affect subjectivity. In this article, I compare patient reports from English-language websites from the past 15 years to find out how minds, bodies, brains, and selves act and interact in the accounts of both patient groups. I conclude that the change in label from CD to FND has not only influenced ideas of medically unexplained disorders, but also affected ideas of the self and the body; of self-control and accountability.

...More

Included in

Article Susanne Schregel; Tineke Broer (2020) Introduction: Contested Narratives of the Mind and the Brain: Neuro/Psychological Knowledge in Popular Debates and Everyday Life. History of the Human Sciences (pp. 3-11). unapi

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB778393839

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Neil E. Anderson; Hamish S. Alexander; Albee Messing; (2023)
Alexander disease: The story behind an eponym

Book David Kieran; (2019)
Signature Wounds: The Untold Story of the Military's Mental Health Crisis

Article Eve-Riina Hyrkäs; (2021)
Psychosomatic Pain? The Meanings of Musculoskeletal Affliction in Finnish Medicine, ca. 1950–2000

Article Kurcgant, Daniela; Ayres, José Ricardo de Carvalho Mesquita; (2011)
Crise não epiléptica psicogênica: história e crítica de um conceito

Article Liesbet De Kock; (2020)
‘I think’ (the thoughts of others). The German tradition of apperceptionism and the intellectual history of schizophrenia

Book Valentina Questa; (2024)
Storia naturale della soggettività: Filosofia, etologia, psicopatologia

Article Barbara Schildkrout; (2023)
What caused Joan of Arc’s neuropsychiatric symptoms? Medical hypotheses from 1882 to 2016

Book Jonna Brenninkmeijer; (2016)
Neurotechnologies of the Self: Mind, Brain and Subjectivity

Article Christoforos Bouzanis; (2022)
On the assumption of self-reflective subjectivity

Article Volker Roelcke; (2021)
Biografie, sozialer Kontext und Körper im Experiment: Evidenz durch integrierte Methodik am Beispiel der Blutdruckforschung bei Thure von Uexküll

Article Steffen Dörre; (2021)
Epistemologische Neupositionierungen. Alexander Mitscherlich zwischen „naturwissenschaftlicher Methodik“, Psychoanalyse und Psychosomatischer Medizin

Book Rebecca Ayako Bennette; (2020)
Diagnosing Dissent: Hysterics, Deserters, and Conscientious Objectors in Germany During World War One

Thesis Puustinen, Raimo; (cited 2011)
Is It Psychosomatic?---An Inquiry into the Nature and Role of Medical Concepts

Article Karen Harvey; (2019)
Epochs of Embodiment: Men, Women and the Material Body

Book Jessica L. Wright; (2022)
The Care of the Brain in Early Christianity

Article Peng, Mu; (2006)
The Doctor's Body: Embodiment and Multiplicity of Chinese Medical Knowledge

Thesis Megan Arkenberg; (2023)
Problems of Life and Mind in Late Victorian Speculative Fiction

Book Özge Yaka; (2023)
Fighting for the River: Gender, Body, and Agency in Environmental Struggles

Article Andrew J. Waclawik; Douglas J. Lanska; (2019)
Antecedents, Development, Adoption, and Application of Duchenne’s Trocar for Histopathologic Studies of Neuromuscular Disorders in the Nineteenth Century

Article Anna Kathryn Schoefert; (2019)
Comparative Neuropathology (1962): Attending to Neuropathologies Across Multiple Species