Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis? Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome [Hardcover]

David B. Allison (Author), Mark S. Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis? begins with a thorough review of the original literature on Munchausen patients, from which authors David Allison and Mark Roberts demonstrate in detail how, psychiatric descriptions of this alleged condition have been thoroughly circular.  The label "Munchausen Syndrome" never denoted a coherent Syndrome: from its "discovery" it has served as a catchphrase for chronically and disagreeably ill patients who share nothing beyond an ability to confuse and eventually antagonize their physicians. With the new MBPS variant, the unity of a "Syndrome" again follows entirely from medical suspicion about a heterogeneous population of disadvantaged mothers and chronically ill children.

Yet, if the diagnosis is an artifact, it is not without serious social implications.  Their final chapter reviews the celebrated case of Yvonne Eldridge to show how the application of this specious diagnostic category may lead to the forcible removal of children from the home over the protests of already disempowered mothers. Seeking to regain custody of their children, mothers accused of MBPS face long, uphill legal battles in which they are confronted by "expert witnesses" who rely on a wholly circular and self-justifying literature.  This extraordinary situation invites comparison with the grievous institutional follies of other eras, to wit, the accuser's power of attribution in the prosecution of witches in early modern history and the physician's authority to diagnose and treat hysteria in the 19th century.

Passionately written and possessed of rare historical breadth and intellectual clarity, Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis? is a powerful wake-up call for the medical, psychiatric, and legal professions. It is essential reading for clinicians and feminist scholars, for social historians, sociologists, and jurists, indeed for all who care about the plight of disadvantaged mothers and the rights of medical patients in our society.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Drawing on a rich array of philosophy, history, politics, psychology, and sociology, Allison and Roberts write in lucid prose that makes reading and learning about their important and appalling subject a pleasure. With an enlightened sensibility, they expose the way that mothers have been blamed and pathologized by the unscientific and damaging creation of an allegedly rampant ‘mental disorder.’ This book is essential reading both for its own sake and because it beautifully illustrates the dangerous workings of a largely unchallenged, hegemonic mental ‘health’ system."

- Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D., Author, They Say You're Crazy

"David Allison and Mark Roberts's book opens a fundamental problematic whose stakes go far beyond the caricatured applications of so-called psychoanalysis in contemporary American society. Beyond the technocratic abuse of such an abstract model as MBPS, which ignores clinical detail and perpetuates social exclusion, a great question arises here that will hold the reader's attention and will certainly prompt new research: What is the mother's role in the mental development of the individual? What are her strengths, her weaknesses, her limits -- her rights?"

- Julia Kristeva, Ph.D., Author, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia

From the Author

David B. Allison, Ph.D. teaches philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has edited several works with Mark S. Roberts and is the author of The New Nietzsche. Professor Allison has written extensively in the areas of history of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and modern European philosophy.

Mark S. Roberts, Ph.D. teaches philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has edited five books and written extensively in the fields of philosophy and media, psychoanalysis, aesthetics, and cultural criticism. He has also translated the works of a number of contemporary French thinkers, including Jean-Franois Lyotard.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881632902
• ISBN-13: 978-0881632903
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,387,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A much-needed, but over-reaching, critique, March 17, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis? Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (Hardcover)

I approach Munchausen by Proxy from a somewhat novel perspective: I have been trained as a developmental and philosophical psychologist, and I currently am the CEO of a child welfare agency. This cross-breeding makes me both sympathetic to the authors' aims and argument (the book reminds me of Ian Hacking's book on multiple personality disorder), *and* sympathetic with those practitioners who have diagnosed MBPS in their work.

One of the premises of this book is that MBPS is rampantly over-identified, and is in fact used as a tool for the continued subjugation of women. I am surprised at this claim, since in my experience social workers, physicians, psychologists, child protection workers, judges, and other professionals display either complete ignorance of the disorder or, if they know what it is, a high degree of denial and reluctance to acknowledge it. This is far from the picture painted by the authors of a Salem-witch-trial frenzy.

The simple fact is that there are people out there who, for various reasons, either invent or exaggerate their children's symptoms OR induce those symptoms. The question is WHY this happens. Sometimes it happens because the parent is seeking material gain. And sometimes it happens because of more complex motives, because in some way the parent is seeking the less tangible rewards of the sick role -- BY PROXY. This latter type of motive is what is involved in MBPS. Notice that there is a wealth of philosophical and sociological questions one could pose here that would also accord with the authors' basic assumptions: What features of modern society might be exerting pressure on mothers to fabricate illness in their children? What does this say about the availability of social supports for women in societies like the US? What pathologies of relationships might be involved here?

I greatly value the kind of analysis presented in this book. There is no question that, especially in the area of psychological disorder, societal forces play a huge role in the construction and identification of pathology. (I highly recommend, in this connection, Arthur Kleinman's book _Social Origins of Distress and Disease_. Nevertheless, I think that it is important to remember that when MBPS is alleged, it is USUALLY alleged by mental health or child welfare professionals who are highly well-intentioned and, above all, careful in their assessments. It is not a matter of judgmental social workers going of half-cocked blaming mothers for their childrens' illnesses. MBPS is a diagnosis that is made only after a lot of hand-wringing and searching for other possibilities.

In my opinion, there is at least as much philosophical interest in the question of what makes so many women fabricate illness in their children as there is in the question of society's interest in creating such a disorder. But this book is a valuable entry in what I hope will be a continuing conversation among philosophers, sociologists, social workers, physicians, and other thinkers.

I would very much like to sign my name to this review, but because of the work that I do and where I do it, I can't. But I'll keep watching these reviews to see if anyone has a comment on what I've said!

11 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poorly substantied tripe, May 23, 2001

By 

mary finestein (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis? Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (Hardcover)

I bought this book hoping that is would be a well researched and supported overview of the development of the diagnosis for Munchausen By Proxy Syndrome. Unfortunately, it did not deliver. I wanted backround and research to support it, but none was forthcoming. The authors write mainly from the philsophical point of view and do not bother to examine whether MBPS is a valid diagnosis based on case study or clinical research. Many MBPS mothers endorse this book because they believe that it vidicates them, however, the mere overdiagnosis of a disorder does not prove it's nonexistance. A reader interested in this subject would do better to read Marc Feldman's book "Patient or Pretender" and/or review the joural articles on Medline. Buy a book about Factitious Disorders that has a more substantial foundation than this book does that is founded on research not supposition. This book is a waste for serious MSBP researchers. Pass.

13 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A One-of-a-Kind Effort, April 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Disordered Mother or Disordered Diagnosis? Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (Hardcover)

It is a real shame that Amazon.com has not really rallied behind this book, or at least has not offered a better discount. Munchausen-By-Proxy-Syndrome is yet another of those awful tools that prosecuters have to indict and convict people (women, in this case) without any real justification or evidence. The 'science' behind this "syndrome" is -- not unlike false memory syndrome, et al. -- a throwback to the days of witch hunts and the like. This text is the only one out there to counter the rampant conviction factory of shameless prosecutors and the FBI.