Simulant

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A simulant is someone who pretends to be sick. Such a pretense or pretense is called simulation and “can mean a completely unconscious, not somatically justifiable symptomatology or also denote the fraudulently motivated pretending of physical symptoms” (Platzek, 2015).

Hospital jargon

As a psychopathological technical term , simulation is the pretense of non-existent symptoms of a clinical picture. Associated with the simulation is a gain in illness , for example financial benefits or increased attention from the environment.

The term simulation can refer to both conscious and unconscious simulation. Freud said in 1920: "All neurotics are simulators, they simulate without knowing it and that is their illness".

It is also possible to simulate simulation and simulation itself can also be viewed as pathological. The psychoanalyst Eissler wrote in 1972: "Simulation is an illness in which the patient is convinced that he is (willingly) pretending to be a physical or mental disorder, but which in reality is the result of a severely damaged and permanently defective personality".

A distinction must be made between aggravation , as the exaggerated emphasis on existing symptoms, and dissimulation , as the concealment of existing symptoms. In contrast to simulation, real symptoms of disease exist with aggravation and dissimulation.

Hypochondria should also be mentioned in this context . Hypochondriacs interpret any signals from their body as a sign of illness.

In clinical jargon one also speaks - to avoid the derogatory term of simulant - of psychogenic overlay or simply of 'overlay'.

forensic science

In the field of forensic psychiatry , the term simulant has a great practical meaning, since - apart from cases that have to be clearly assessed - the serious pursuit of financial advantages or the desire to delay the procedure for pretended real or only imputed reasons can only be objectified with difficulty. Finding a "simulation" in court, for example in the case of a desire for a pension, therefore seems a bit too simplistic. These questions are not scientific, but purely pragmatic.

Colloquial language

Influenced by hospital jargon (and in part by forensics) the term simulant has also become common in everyday language. Understood in this way, simulant is interpreted as a hypocrite.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pschyrembel Clinical Dictionary . Founded by Willibald Pschyrembel . Edited by the publisher's dictionary editor. 255th edition. De Gruyter, Berlin 1986, p. 1551.
  2. ↑ Reinhard Platzek: The psychiatric treatment according to Kaufmann - is it really medical torture? A reflection on the modern perception of electrosuggestive therapy. In: Medical historical messages. Journal for the history of science and specialist prose research. Volume 34, 2015 (2016), pp. 169–193, here: p. 173.
  3. ^ Sigmund Freud : Expert opinion on the electrical treatment of war neurotics. Excerpt from the minutes of the negotiation of October 14, 1920. Edited by Renée Gicklhorn. In: Psyche. Volume 26, 1972, pp. 942-951, pp. 947.
  4. ↑ See also Paul Julius Möbius : Remarks on simulation in the case of accident nervous patients. In: Munich Medical Weekly. Volume 37, 1890, pp. 887 f.
  5. ^ Kurt Robert Eissler : Freud and Wagner-Jauregg before the commission for the survey of military breaches of duty. Vienna 1979, pp. 192 f., 202, 213 and 216.
  6. ↑ Uwe Henrik Peters : Dictionary of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology. 3. Edition. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich 1984, p. 11.
  7. ^ Albrecht Langelüddeke, Paul H. Bresser: Judicial psychiatry. 4th edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-11-006777-3 , pp. 321, 398, 401.
  8. ↑ Duden: spelling and foreign dictionary. Volume 1, Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 1973, ISBN 3-411-00911-X , p. 631.
  9. ↑ Brockhaus Encyclopedia: The large foreign dictionary. FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-7653-1270-3 , p. 1231.

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