Psychogenic illness

Define the basic features of mass psychogenic illness and apply this to the public s reaction to real or perceived bioterrorist threats. 

In addition to the physiological injuries they may cause, attacks or even threats involving chemical or biological weapons will have certain negative effects on both those in the vicinity of the attacks and the general population. One possible effect is mass psychogenic illness. 

Psychogenic illness describes a constellation of disease symptoms in a group of individuals, but the cause of their ailments cannot be determined. Usually this... 

Similarly, there may be an increased incidence of psychogenic illness along with heightened concerns over chemical and biological terrorism. 

Symptoms secondary to nerve agent exposure may be especially difficult to differentiate from stress-associated somatic symptoms. Disaster somatization reaction (DSD), an alternative nosological term to mass hysteria, psychogenic illness, worried well, vicarious victims and contagious fear, classifies the response in patients who interpret their anxiety symptoms as due to direct exposure or infection, or who develop symptoms similar to those identified with exposure or infection (25). 

Chew PK How to handle hysterical factory workers. Occup Health Saf 47 50-53,1978 Chew PK, Phoon WH, Mae-Lim HA Epidemic hysteria among some factory workers in Singapore. Singapore Med J 17 10-15, 1976 Colligan MJ Mass psychogenic illness some clarification and perspectives. Journal of Occupational Medicine 23 635-638, 1981... 

Colligan MJ, Murphy LR Mass psychogenic illness in organizations an overview. 

Journal of Occupational Psychology 52 77-90, 1979 Colligan MJ, Smith MJ A methodological approach for evaluating outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness in industry. Journal of Occupational Medicine 20 401 102,... 

Hall EM, Johnson JV A case study of stress and mass psychogenic illness in industrial workers. Journal of Occupational Medicine 31 243-250,1989 Jones TF, Craig AS, Hoy D, et al Mass psychogenic illness attributed to toxic exposure at a high school. N Engl J Med 342 129-130, 2000 Krug SE Mass illness at an intermediate school toxic fumes or epidemic hysteria Pediatr Emerg Care 8 280-282,1992... 

Murphy LR, Colligan MJ Mass psychogenic illness in a shoe factory a case report. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 44 133-138,1979... 

In my view, the most important issue discussed by Jones and colleagues and the editorial is not psychogenic illness, but the demarcation between illness and nonillness. There is no verifiable difference between a psychogenic and an organic symptom (unless the latter term is used incorrectly, in lieu of sign ). 

Creating a taxonomic category—say, money, fish, or illness —implies a commitment to excluding items that do not belong in it, especially deliberate imitations. Counterfeit is not money, dolphins are not fish, and imaginary illnesses are not diseases. The fact that psychogenic illnesses seem real to patients as well as doctors, or that both want to treat them as if they were illnesses, is irrelevant to this conclusion. 

S. Wessely, Responding to mass psychogenic illness (Editorial), New England Journal of Medicine, 342 129-130 (January 13), 2000. 

Psychologists at niosh and elsewhere began suggesting that perhaps these incidents were a form of mass psychogenic illness (mpi), also known as mass hysteria. m p i was understood as a pathology of perception, a form of misperception in which workers wrongly attributed their... 

Singer etal, Mass Psychogenic Illness. On the history of menstruation and work, see Cayleff, She Was Rendered Incapacitated Harlow, Function and Dysfunction Emily Martin, Woman in the Body, 92-138 and Walker, History of Menstrual Psychology. ... 

See, e.g.. Boxer, Occupational Mass Psychogenic Illness Colligan, Psychological Effects Faust and Brilhant, Diagnosis of Mass Hysteria and Ryan and Morrow, Dysfunctional Buildings or Dysfunctional People. ... 

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