PSYC 4300 Lecture Notes - Relaxation Technique, Proband, Data Point
Document Summary
View conversion disorder as similar to malingering in that the person adopts the symptom to secure some end. Ulman and krasner specify two conditions that increase the likelihood that motor and sensory disabilities will be imitated. First, the individual must have has some experience with the role to be adopted; he or she may have had similar physical problems or may have observed them in others. Second, he enactment of a role must be rewarded; an individual will assume a disability only if it can be expected wither to reduce stress or to reap other positive consequences. There has been a decrease in the incidence of conversion disorder over the last century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, repressive sexual attitudes may have contributed to the increased prevalence of the disorder. The decrease in its incidence, then, may be attributed to a general relaxing of sexual mores.