Rare and Interesting Mental Disorders and Illnesses

Boanthropy Boanthropy is an illness in which sufferers take to the belief that they are cattle. Some Christians consider the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar to have suffered from this disorder. "He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle." (Daniel 4:33)

Paris Syndrome
The syndrome is what some polite Japanese tourists suffer when they discover that Parisians can be rude or the city does not meet their expectations. The reality of coming to terms with the profound culture shock after realising that their ideals about the French capital are unrealistic sees around 100 Japanese expatriates a year consulting a psychiatrist, and a quarter of that number hospitalised. The victims are more often than not young women besotted by Paris' chic, romantic image.

Stendhal Syndrome
Dizziness, panic, paranoia, or madness caused by viewing certain artistic or historical artifacts or by trying to see too many such artifacts in too short a time.

Jerusalem Syndrome
The Jerusalem syndrome is the name given to a group of mental phenomena involving the presence of either religiously themed obsessive ideas, delusions or other psychosis-like experiences, that are triggered by, or lead to, a visit to the city of Jerusalem.

Capgras Delusion
The Capgras delusion (or Capgras syndrome) is a disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that a friend, spouse or other close family member, has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. The Capgras delusion is classed as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places or objects. It can occur in acute, transient, or chronic forms.

Fregoli Delusion
Fregoli syndrome is the delusional belief that one or more familiar persons, usually persecutors following the patient, repeatedly change their appearance. This syndrome has often been discussed as a variant of the Capgras syndrome in the literature, but these two syndromes have different phenomenological structures and age and sex distributions. The author presents a review of 34 cases of Fregoli syndrome in the English and French language literature, discussing the syndrome's definition, aetiology and course. It is suggested that although an organic substrate may be found in some cases, it is the dominant psychotic theme which determines the content of the syndrome.
Rare and Interesting Mental Disorders and Illnesses


Cotard Delusion
The Cotard delusion or Cotard's syndrome, also known as nihilistic or negation delusion, is a rare neuropsychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief that he or she is dead, does not exist, is putrefying or has lost his/her blood or internal organs. Rarely, it can include delusions of immortality.

It is named after Jules Cotard (1840–1889), a French neurologist who first described the condition, which he called le délire de négation ("negation delirium"), in a lecture in Paris in 1880. He described the syndrome as having various degrees of severity, ranging from mild to severe. In a mild state, feelings of despair and self-loathing occur, while in the severe state a person with Cotard's syndrome actually starts to deny the very existence of the self.

Reduplicative Paramnesia
Reduplicative paramnesia is the delusional belief that a place or location has been duplicated, existing in two or more places simultaneously, or that it has been 'relocated' to another site. It is one of the delusional misidentification syndromes and, although rare, is most commonly associated with acquired brain injury, particularly simultaneous damage to the right cerebral hemisphere and to both frontal lobes.

Foreign Accent Syndrome
Some patients who suffer brain injuries occasionally lose the ability to talk in their native accent (...) The condition, called "foreign accent syndrome", affects only a tiny number of patients.
It can mean that a native English speaker can end up sounding more like Spanish or French. (...) combination of subtle changes to vocal features such as lengthening of syllables, altered pitch or mispronounced sounds which make a patient's pronunciation sound similar to a foreign accent.

Alien Hand Syndrome
Alien hand syndrome (anarchic hand or Dr. Strangelove syndrome) is an unusual neurological disorder in which one of the sufferer's hands seems to take on a mind of its own. AHS is best documented in cases where a person has had the two hemispheres of their brain surgically separated, a procedure sometimes used to relieve the symptoms of extreme cases of epilepsy. It also occurs in some cases after other brain surgery, strokes, or infections.

Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS)
Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS, named after the novel written by Lewis Carroll), also known as Todd's syndrome, is a disorienting neurological condition which affects human perception. Sufferers may experience micropsia (see below), macropsia (see below), and/or size distortion of other sensory modalities. A temporary condition, it is often associated with migraines, brain tumors, and the use of psychoactive drugs.

(Micropsia is a neurological condition affecting human visual perception, in which objects appear smaller than normal, and the subject bigger.)

(Macropsia is a neurological condition affecting human visual perception, in which objects appear larger than normal, and the subject smaller.)

Apotemnophilia
Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), also known as Amputee Identity Disorder or Apotemnophilia (from Greek αποτέμνειν "to cut off", and φιλία "love of") is the overwhelming desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs or other parts of the body. Although it most commonly refers to people who wish to amputate limbs, BIID also applies to those who wish to alter their bodily integrity.

Genital Retraction Syndrome Those suffering from GRS are overcome with the fear they they're external genitals (this includes the breasts) are actually shrinking, and/or retracting into the body to the point of complete disappearance.

Jumping Frenchmen of Maine
It results in an exaggerated "startle" reflex, and was first noted among related French-Canadian lumberjacks in the Moosehead Lake area of Maine. It is not clear if the disorder is neurological or psychological.

The "Jumping Frenchmen" seemed to react abnormally to sudden stimuli. Beard recorded, for instance, individuals who would obey any command given suddenly, even if it meant striking a loved one, and repeat back unfamiliar or foreign phrases uncontrollably. Beard also noticed that the condition was often shared within a family, suggesting that it was inherited.

Trichotillomania
Trichotillomania is an impulse control disorder characterized by an overwhelming urge to pull out one's own hair, often resulting in patches of baldness. The hair on the scalp is most often affected. The eyelashes, eyebrows, and beard are also affected often. In some cases, affected individuals chew and/or swallow (ingest) the hair they have pulled out (trichophagy). The exact cause of trichotillomania is unknown.

Wendigo Psychosis
Wendigo Psychosis is a culture-bound disorder which involves an intense craving for human flesh and the fear that one will turn into a cannibal. This once occurred frequently among Algonquian Indian cultures, though has declined with the Native American urbanization.

Exploding head syndrome
Exploding head syndrome is a rare and relatively undocumented parasomnia event in which the subject experiences a loud bang in their head similar to a bomb exploding, a gun going off, a clash of cymbals or any other form of loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside the head. Contrary to the name, exploding head syndrome has no elements of pain, swelling or any other physical trait associated with it. They may be perceived as having bright flashes of light accompanying them, or result in shortness of breath, though this is likely caused by the increased heart rate of the subject after experiencing it. It most often occurs just before deep sleep, and sometimes upon coming out of deep sleep.