Patient or Pretender: Inside the Strange World of Factitious Disorders

As children, most of us played sick at one time or another to get our parents' sympathy and attention. In Patient or Pretender, psychiatrists Marc Feldman and Charles Ford take us into the strange world of people who take the game of playing sick to pathological, sometimes fatal, extremes. Driven by the need for attention, these people manufacture physical and psychological symptoms, often injuring themselves to get medical treatment. And, in the process, these "great pretenders" mislead and victimize their families and friends, baffle physicians, and wantonly consume precious medical resources.

Meet Jenny, the secretary who feigned breast cancer and went so far as to shave her head, lose weight, and even join a cancer support group. Then there is the mother who suffocated her own child so she could play the role of martyred parent. These compelling case studies read like medical detective stories, as doctors try to separate fact from fiction and explore the real causes of their patients' illnesses. Along the way, Drs. Feldman and Ford offer us insights, not only into the workings of desperate minds, but the human condition in general.

Marc D. Feldman, M.D., is a practicing psychiatrist and Medical Director of the University of Alabama Center for Psychiatric Medicine in Birmingham, and a well-known expert on factitious disorders.

Charles V. Ford, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Alabama's School of Medicine and Director of the University of Alabama Neuropsychiatry Clinic in Birmingham. He is an acknowledged expert on factitious psychosomatic disorders.

Toni Reinhold is an award-winning journalist and author. Her works include Untamed, the as-told-to autobiography of Gunther Gebel-Williams.