Symptom carrier

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Symptom carriers are individuals within a group or population who have a recognizable disease and thus symptoms of the disease can be determined. The term originally comes from infection epidemiology in order to capture the difference between recognizable infected and symptom-free virus carriers , both of which have different meanings for the spread of a disease.

The term "symptom carrier" is also used in psychotherapy, especially family therapy , and here means a person with recognizable symptoms that represent a whole group or a disturbed psychosocial system (cf. systemic therapy ). This substitute role has consequences in the psychotherapeutic approach.