Vainglorious: The Munchausen Complex

[say_no_to_circ]

May-26-2008 13:31

Vainglorious: The Munchausen Complex

By Richard L. Matteoli for Salem-News.com

Munchausen Syndrome in Collective Transmission extends Transgenerational abuses into a community, society, or culture.

Courtesy: djeedjes.wordpress.com

(SAN ANDREAS, Calif.) - This report extends Munchausen Syndrome and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy when harmful behaviors become part of the social fabric.

As socialized beings, we are usually unaware why we think what we think and why we do what we do. Exploring beneath the surface, we may discover we are not who we imagine we are. Are our subtle perversions and aberrations so different from those of the ancients, or other cultures we label primitive? Inferring atrocity to others is easier. By pointing fingers, we don't have to look at ourselves.

Richard Dawkins introduced the meme which may be thought as a social gene. A meme is a psychological tool often used by humans to pass down cultural identity. Memes can include customs, language, music, dietary habits, catch phrases, fads, fashion, and humor. Social rituals create identification for group cohesion and transmitted to successive generations for cultural continuity.

Circumcision from Abraham is an example. Abraham initiated his tribal rite with self-circumcision. He passed it to the next generation by circumcising his children. He passed circumcision to his group, and cultural transmission was established when all people under Abraham's rule, including slaves and servants, were cut.

Munchausen Syndrome (MS)
Sir Richard Asher, an English physician, introduced Munchausen Syndrome in 1951. In this syndrome a person fabricates signs and symptoms of illness for attention and sympathy. Munchausen patients know their condition is false.

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP)
Roy Meadow, an English pediatrician, introduced Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) in 1977. MSBP occurs when the person seeking attention causes harm by fabricating an illness in another. A perpetrator's payoff is the attention gained from involvement in their victim's treatment. This way they become an alter-patient, under the guise of a concerned caretaker, without personally suffering injury. The victim is a means to an end. MSBP is difficult to diagnose, has been misused, but valid in proper context. Some health care providers, mostly nurses, do this. This health care phenomenon may very well be a distinct category of Munchausen that should be researched and defined as Munchausen Malignant Hero Syndrome.

MUNCHAUSEN COMPLEX
When Munchausen behaviors enter the social, taken together they form a Munchausen Complex.

Munchausen Syndrome in Social Transference
When Munchausen acts of abuse manifest themselves in a social context and when they become commonplace and acceptable, an identity shift occurs through social transference. Transference is defined as: the displacement of one's unresolved conflicts, dependencies, and aggressions onto a substitute object.

MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME IN SOCIAL TRANSFERENCE is the identity transference of the self into a social group that practices forms of Munchausen behavior.

Transgenerational Munchausen Syndrome
Transgenerational Munchausen Syndrome is the passing of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy's abuses to successive generations. The purpose is to feed the need for belonging through attachment seeking. Transgenerational Munchausen practices are not fully acculturated.

TRANSGENERATIONAL MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME is generational abuse in family and social groups and a step toward acculturation.

Munchausen Syndrome in Collective Transmission
Munchausen Syndrome in Collective Transmission extends Transgenerational abuses into a community, society, or culture. It creates a social honoring, thus an honoring of the self. Group identity gives security through social cohesion and conformity.

Actions become social mores. Mores are folkways accepted without question and embody the fundamental moral views of a group. They also give power to those who perform a social ritual.

Collective Munchausen often involves some sort of perceived physical beautification, or it can signify grieving. As with other forms of Munchausen, Collective Munchausen includes various kinds of wounding. The wounding is usually, though not always, performed by one member of the group onto another.

Besides the account of Abraham, another more recent example is that of Queen Victoria of England. She thought European royalty were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. She initiated circumcision in the royal family and circumcision spread throughout English speaking countries.

MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME IN COLLECTIVE TRANSMISSION is a delusional transmission of a pattern of destructive behavior, harmful ritual, condition, or simulation of disease taken to clinical significance whether to a person or another person or group of persons. The act involves the transference of an alleged identity into interpersonal, family, community, societal, or cultural relationships. The act often operates by deliberate transmission from one generation to subsequent generations of unresolved conflicts, dependencies, and aggressions onto a substitute body object of heirs.

Some forms of Munchausen Syndrome in Collective Transmission may be minor, but other forms can become severe. Examples of wounding for the social purpose include, but are not necessarily limited to: flagellation, piercing, tattooing, branding, scarification, oral modification, skeletal deformation, trepanation, finger amputation, amputation of the flesh, and genital play which includes circumcision.

Collective Munchausen in Social Agency
Agency relationships involve a person called an agent who acts for and represents another person called the principal. The agent acts and represents the principal through the authority transmitted to him by the principal. The fallacy here for circumcision is that the agent, the doctor, is not the agent of the parent-principal, but is actually the principal of the infant or child. Yet, the law does not allow, nor acknowledge, any authority of agency inherent to minors or the mentally incompetent. For their protection, the social body of the courts and law enforcement are the true agents of the infant or child when collusive abuse occurs.

COLLECTIVE MUNCHAUSEN IN SOCIAL AGENCY is the agency relationship between the ‘principal' who is the person with a primary legal agency, usually a parent or caregiver, and another person, the ‘agent,' who accepts secondary agency, usually a doctor or shaman, that creates an act of abuse within social group behavior.

Munchausen Syndrome for Profit
Usually Munchausen motives are: attention, self-glorification, and obtaining adulation from others. Yet financial gain can be another motive. This may involve the collusion of a perpetrator with an expert. For example: a complainant and an attorney. An example would be a case where people can take advantage of the California Disabilities Act. This Act allows any individual to sue landowners or renters whose buildings and parking lots do not conform to disabled access codes. This has been successful even in cases where the landowner was to code when repairs were made and thus exempt from the Act. Settlements occur because fighting the suit would cost more.

By intentionally making their health worse, they could give the appearance of helplessness. This can gain sympathy of the populace and persuade the legal system to rule in their favor.

MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME FOR PROFIT is the fabrication of disease or exacerbation of an existing medical condition by a person, often with a specialized agent as an attorney or special interest group, to gain sympathy from others and/or society for financial gain.

Collective Munchausen Syndrome for Profit
This group activity also has a profit motive. A connection is the Tissue Nutrient Solution (TNS) Recovery Complex. A harvested prepuce is used to produce anti-aging cosmetics to feed a Dorian Gray Syndrome - the fear of aging. Products are marketed in association with a corporation. The end product of the circumcision becomes body empowerment for the recipient, not the victim. Dr. Patricia Wexler reports some women using the products justify vanity over morality with: "When it comes to cosmetic matters, women have a: ‘Don't ask, don't tell me, please!' policy."

COLLECTIVE MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME FOR PROFIT occurs in group activity, with the motive for profit that involves the abuse of another person.

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Salem-News.com has published other articles on circumcision, you can view them at these links:

Jan-31-2008: Researcher Discloses Three-Millennial Falsification: The 2nd Commandment Forbids Circumcision

May-13-2008: Male Circumcision Ineffective in HIV Battle According to Future HIV Therapy Report

Jan-15-2008: Is Circumcision Another Form of Genital Mutilation?

Dec-07-2007: Oregon Courts Have No Right to Force Circumcision