Formerly known as "hysteria", the disorder has arguably been known for millennia, though it came to greatest prominence at the end of the 19th century, when the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, physician and personality theorist Sigmund Freud and psychiatrist Pierre Janet focused their studies on the subject.
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Conversion disorder is considered a psychiatric disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fifth edition (DSM-5).
Allan (Perkins) is suffering from hysterical blindness following a fire that killed his father, a renowned academic who punished Allan as a child.
Major depressive disorder | bipolar disorder | obsessive-compulsive disorder | Disorder in the Court | Borderline personality disorder | Bipolar disorder | Substance use disorder | Religious conversion | religious conversion | Dissociative identity disorder | Congenital disorder | Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder | Vision of Disorder | Social anxiety disorder | Posttraumatic stress disorder | Narcissistic personality disorder | Conversion to Judaism | Conversion to Christianity | antisocial personality disorder | Type conversion | pervasive developmental disorder | Operational conversion unit | Obsessive–compulsive disorder | Mill conversion | major depressive disorder | Esophageal motility disorder | Energy conversion efficiency | eating disorder | dissociative identity disorder | conversion to Christianity |
Current SIGs include Clinical Practice, Conversion Disorders, Dementia, Developmental Disorders and Pediatrics, Early Career, Epilepsy, Forensics, Global Health, Movement Disorders, Neuroimaging and Traumatic Brain Injury.
Germany's leading neurologist, Hermann Oppenheim, claimed that all railway spine symptoms were due to physical damage to the spine or brain, whereas French and British scholars, notably Jean-Martin Charcot and Herbert Page, insisted that some symptoms could be caused by hysteria (now known as conversion disorder).