An introduction

This website is an introduction to all diseases currently classed as functional somatic symptoms. This includes Conversion Disorder, Functional Weakness and Functional Neurological Deficits. We will also look at complaints such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and unexplained fatigue which some consider to also be functional somatic complaints. Currently many neurologists and psychiatrists see such disorders as hysterical. They argue that they are caused by emotional disturbances and abnormal illness behaviour. That in effect the patient is somatising.

“Functional weakness is, if you excuse an americanism, a “croc” with no existence in reality except in the minds of a few psychiatrists....I believe in scientific investigation rather than theory.”- Hyde

“It is clear that generations of physicians have passed on the doctrine of hysteria to the medical students they are training rather in the same way that doctrines or creeds are passed on by priests, without critically interrogating them or inquiring into the historical conditions under which they emerged.”- Webster

To find out more read Charcot’s Bad Idea! Available direct from amazon.com. Also just in print is a response to Sharpe and colleagues paper on benefits and functional somatic symptoms in the journal of psychological medicine. Click the link HERE or above