(no subject)
Here's a form of self-alteration that I don't recommend, but which can be interesting to study:
Craving for amputation is more complex than once thought, researchers say
Sept. 11, 2005
Special to World Science
When an affable, middle-aged man told doctors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisc., that he wanted a limb amputated-and always had-they spent months trying to cure him.
He then packed both his legs in dry ice for seven hours, causing severe frostbite and forcing them to chop off both legs above the knee. That done, he told the doctors, he was finally happy.
For a while.
Lately, the man, called “Patient A” by physicians to protect his privacy, has been talking about doing the same thing to his left arm, the doctors report.
Researchers are studying why some people persistently want to have limbs amputated, and the scientists are finding that the motivations are surprisingly varied. As a result, they’re struggling with the question of how to diagnose, let alone treat, the condition.
Scientists once considered it solely as an aberration of a sexual or psychotic nature, but researchers are learning that some “wannabe amputees” have different motivations, according to five psychiatrists from the medical center. The doctors, who worked with Patient A, described some of these findings in the September-October issue of the research journal Comprehensive Psychiatry.
The Internet is feeding and encouraging would-be self-amputators by bringing them together, the researchers added. There are also doctors willing to perform amputations for them.
The “wannabes” commonly say amputation is to them a form of self-fulfillment. They claim it would, paradoxically, make them feel “whole.” Some also admit less exalted motivations, including, in Patient A’s case, a wish for attention-including the sorts of attention that cost taxpayer money.
Patient A said he wanted amputation partly because it’s “something about me that is noticed, accords me certain accommodations and cannot be denied,” according to the Comprehensive Psychiatry paper. He applied for and received Social Security disability benefits after his operation.
The authors described him as intelligent, articulate and tranquil, but with an abusive childhood and failed marriage, as well as sometime transsexual tendencies.
He never expressed a regret over his amputation, the researchers said, but he did agree to undergo more therapy after it. There, he “revealed that he had been interacting on the Internet in a news group designed for self amputees. Through these online communications, [he] deepened his motivation, developed the means, and finalized his determination to act on his desire.”
The desire to be amputated is known as apotemnophilia. The term was coined by researchers who first described the condition in the modern era, in 1977, according to the Comprehensive Psychiatry paper.
It’s unknown how prevalent the condition is, and doctors still don’t know its causes, wrote the paper’s authors, Bertrand D. Berger and colleagues.
One way to gain insight into the condition, they added, might be to explore what it has in common with other, better understood psychiatric conditions. One could possibly then classify it as a variant of one of these conditions. But this strategy has proven difficult, they wrote.
A diagnosis that might have applied in Patient A’s case is borderline personality disorder, the researchers explained. This is a condition characterized by impulsive actions, mood instability, chaotic relationships, and frequently, self-mutilation.
A problem with this diagnosis is that the mutilation has different motivations in the two conditions, Berger and colleagues wrote. Borderline patients often cut or burn themselves when “attempting suicide, or reaffirming the sense of being evil,” or having an episode of split personality. But “our patient reported the amputation as a means of being whole.”
Another possible diagnosis would be body dysmorphic disorder, a condition whose patients are convinced they have a defect in appearance, Berger and colleagues wrote. Patients believe they have a misshapen, smelly, or otherwise defective body part.
But again, the situation with Patient A and many other wannabe amputees is different. Their “preoccupation is not necessarily focused on a problem with the limb, but rather on not being ‘whole’ with the limb,” Berger and colleagues wrote.
Other researchers have seen affinities between the amputation craving and Munchhausen syndrome, who deliberately get sick or induce symptoms of illness because they like medical attention. A key difference, though, is that Munchhausen patients do this repeatedly, whereas most apotemnophiliacs, unlike Patient A, seem satisfied with one operation.
Whatever the cause of the condition, Internet discussion groups for people with the condition have blossomed. So have groups for people with a related condition, known as acrotomophilia-a sexual attraction toward amputees.
One discussion group for both amputee wannabes and those attracted to them has garnered more than 3,400 members since its founding just two months ago.
“Without the Internet, our patient may never have met someone with similar ideas,” Berger and colleagues wrote. “The Internet helped provide a blueprint for self-amputation. Without the Internet, our patient may never have conceived, let alone used a method to bring about, self-amputation. We anticipate that increasing Internet access will lead to more cases of self-amputation
Original article here.
Craving for amputation is more complex than once thought, researchers say
Sept. 11, 2005
Special to World Science
When an affable, middle-aged man told doctors at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisc., that he wanted a limb amputated-and always had-they spent months trying to cure him.
He then packed both his legs in dry ice for seven hours, causing severe frostbite and forcing them to chop off both legs above the knee. That done, he told the doctors, he was finally happy.
For a while.
Lately, the man, called “Patient A” by physicians to protect his privacy, has been talking about doing the same thing to his left arm, the doctors report.
Researchers are studying why some people persistently want to have limbs amputated, and the scientists are finding that the motivations are surprisingly varied. As a result, they’re struggling with the question of how to diagnose, let alone treat, the condition.
Scientists once considered it solely as an aberration of a sexual or psychotic nature, but researchers are learning that some “wannabe amputees” have different motivations, according to five psychiatrists from the medical center. The doctors, who worked with Patient A, described some of these findings in the September-October issue of the research journal Comprehensive Psychiatry.
The Internet is feeding and encouraging would-be self-amputators by bringing them together, the researchers added. There are also doctors willing to perform amputations for them.
The “wannabes” commonly say amputation is to them a form of self-fulfillment. They claim it would, paradoxically, make them feel “whole.” Some also admit less exalted motivations, including, in Patient A’s case, a wish for attention-including the sorts of attention that cost taxpayer money.
Patient A said he wanted amputation partly because it’s “something about me that is noticed, accords me certain accommodations and cannot be denied,” according to the Comprehensive Psychiatry paper. He applied for and received Social Security disability benefits after his operation.
The authors described him as intelligent, articulate and tranquil, but with an abusive childhood and failed marriage, as well as sometime transsexual tendencies.
He never expressed a regret over his amputation, the researchers said, but he did agree to undergo more therapy after it. There, he “revealed that he had been interacting on the Internet in a news group designed for self amputees. Through these online communications, [he] deepened his motivation, developed the means, and finalized his determination to act on his desire.”
The desire to be amputated is known as apotemnophilia. The term was coined by researchers who first described the condition in the modern era, in 1977, according to the Comprehensive Psychiatry paper.
It’s unknown how prevalent the condition is, and doctors still don’t know its causes, wrote the paper’s authors, Bertrand D. Berger and colleagues.
One way to gain insight into the condition, they added, might be to explore what it has in common with other, better understood psychiatric conditions. One could possibly then classify it as a variant of one of these conditions. But this strategy has proven difficult, they wrote.
A diagnosis that might have applied in Patient A’s case is borderline personality disorder, the researchers explained. This is a condition characterized by impulsive actions, mood instability, chaotic relationships, and frequently, self-mutilation.
A problem with this diagnosis is that the mutilation has different motivations in the two conditions, Berger and colleagues wrote. Borderline patients often cut or burn themselves when “attempting suicide, or reaffirming the sense of being evil,” or having an episode of split personality. But “our patient reported the amputation as a means of being whole.”
Another possible diagnosis would be body dysmorphic disorder, a condition whose patients are convinced they have a defect in appearance, Berger and colleagues wrote. Patients believe they have a misshapen, smelly, or otherwise defective body part.
But again, the situation with Patient A and many other wannabe amputees is different. Their “preoccupation is not necessarily focused on a problem with the limb, but rather on not being ‘whole’ with the limb,” Berger and colleagues wrote.
Other researchers have seen affinities between the amputation craving and Munchhausen syndrome, who deliberately get sick or induce symptoms of illness because they like medical attention. A key difference, though, is that Munchhausen patients do this repeatedly, whereas most apotemnophiliacs, unlike Patient A, seem satisfied with one operation.
Whatever the cause of the condition, Internet discussion groups for people with the condition have blossomed. So have groups for people with a related condition, known as acrotomophilia-a sexual attraction toward amputees.
One discussion group for both amputee wannabes and those attracted to them has garnered more than 3,400 members since its founding just two months ago.
“Without the Internet, our patient may never have met someone with similar ideas,” Berger and colleagues wrote. “The Internet helped provide a blueprint for self-amputation. Without the Internet, our patient may never have conceived, let alone used a method to bring about, self-amputation. We anticipate that increasing Internet access will lead to more cases of self-amputation
Original article here.