Munchausen syndrome

[ muhn-chou-zuhn sin-drohm, muhnch-hou-zuhn ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

, Psychiatry.

a factitious disorder in which otherwise healthy individuals seek to hospitalize themselves with feigned or self-induced pathology in order to receive surgical or other medical treatment.

1950–55; named after Baron von Münchhausen ( def ), whose fictionalized accounts of his own experiences suggest symptoms of the disorder

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