• FUNCTIONAL NEUROLOGICAL DISORDER

The terms ‘hysteria’ and ‘psychogenic’ came up regularly during my medical training. Once a patient received either of these diagnoses, as clinicians, we frequently labelled such patients as ‘time wasters’ who were keeping us from seeing ‘genuine patients’. This stemmed from an understanding that such patients were feigning their symptoms. It is only recently, during my neurology residency training, that I have had exposure to treat patients with functional neurological disorders (FNDs). Although it is undocumented in my setting, most of the patients I’ve encountered are female, typically young and of low socioeconomic status as is reported in literature.1

I find the paper ‘Functional neurological disorder is a feminist …