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Should Conversion Disorder Be Reclassified as a Dissociative Disorder in DSM–V?

Received October 19, 2006; revised March 26, 2007; accepted April 2, 2007. From the School of Psychological Science s, Univ. of Manchester, U.K.; the Dept. of Psychology, Univ. of Lund, Sweden; Mental Health Care, Drenthe, Assen, The Netherlands; the Dept. of Psychiatry, Istanbul Univ., Istanbul, Turkey; and the Dept. of Clinical and Health Psychology, Utrecht Univ., Utrecht, The Netherlands. Send correspondence and reprint requests to Richard J. Brown, Ph.D., ClinPsyD, Academic Division of Clinical Psychology, University of Manchester, 2nd Floor, Zochonis Building, Brunswick Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, U.K. e-mail: richard.james.brown{at}manchester.ac.uk
© 2007 The Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine

Pseudoneurological symptoms (i.e., conversion disorder), historically subsumed within the "hysteria" concept alongside phenomena such as psychogenic amnesia and multiple personality disorder, have been classified as somatoform disorders since DSM–III. Since then, there have been repeated calls to reclassify conversion disorder with the dissociative disorders, as in ICD-10. The authors review issues such as the high correlations between pseudoneurological and dissociative symptoms, the high rates of trauma reported for both groups, and the position that these phenomena share underlying processes. Although reintegrating pseudoneurological symptoms with the dissociative disorders is not without complications, there is a strong case for such a reclassification.

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