Contemporary Conversion Reactions

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Abstract
Conversion reactions—somatic symptoms of presumed psychological origin— continue to pose diagnostic problems in all areas of medicine. The authors formulate conversion reactions as unconsciously simulated illnesses (or enactments of learned "sick roles") which serve to camouflage emotional disorders. Diagnosis of conversion reaction may be made only when physiological abnormality is ruled out or found to be inadequate to explain the symptoms, and when there is concurrent evidence of incipient emotional problems. Psychiatric collaboration in the diagnostic work-up is, then, highly desirable. Certain empirical and thematic psychological tests may provide further presumptive evidence for diagnosis. Although histrionic, repressive, and immature personality traits may tend to correlate with conversion reactions, they have not been found to be consistently associated and are, therefore, unreliable criteria for diagnosis.

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