To think a person can be coached to fake a medical condition?

[Sirine1708]

In particular the conditions that can't be ruled out using instrumental tests.
ADHD or anxiety as an example.
Coached or self-studied - obviously both methods can be used.

I know that this was rife at one of the private London schools a few years ago. The sort of school where you have to score very highly on the entrance tests to get an offer.

At the start of year 7 the kids were assessed by the school's in-house Ed Psych and lo and behold about 1/3 of these very high achieving children were diagnosed with disabilities and granted extra time in exams.

However any kids that had disabilities that meant that they might not perform as expected and bring down the results were either managed out or entered as "external candidates" at GCSE.

A mental health condition wouldn't spare you from jail ,if it was a serious and complex mental health condition it might be that the needs of the person are based served in a special hospital, but they are no walk,in a park.
There will bevpleanty of people with diagnosed mental health condition, s innprison too.

You reminded me about a recent incident in a boarding school involving a hammer, where student now claims he was sleepwalking.

Actually I had whiplash after my car was written off after someone drove into the back of me doing 40 when I was stationary at traffic lights. It was totally real. I couldn’t lift my head to get up from lying down and had pain and limited movement for a couple of months.

What is your point with this thread OP? Is this yet another one about invisible disabilities not being real and disabled people being liars and cheats? If so it gets a bit repetitive tbh.
Of course there will always be some people who tell lies for their own gain. But we don’t have numerous threads about tax evasion.

Ableist bollocks.

So people absolutely can't be coached you're saying and there're no examples of it?
Or what?

The student was found guilty so I don't know what your point there is?

You're talking about a minority

Literally to get peoples' opinion and maybe some examples along the way.

At Uni my son met a lot of students that had extra time from private schools, his friend said that he had been coached in the test and so I agree with the above poster that it is/was being used to get extra exam time in exams

Being realistic any system which offers a reward will be exploited and I am not saying that people do not genuinely suffer from these conditions.

OP I don't think you've ever seen someone with severe anxiety or depression, I'd say it'd almost impossible to fake. Same with something like autism or dyslexia. I'm pretty sure there's orders of magnitude more people with dyslexia, autism, anxiety and depression etc who have not been diagnosed than there are who are faking it.

I think one of the issues can be that let's say you think you have a certain condition. You read about it online, and think "oh yes, that's me" for some of the symptoms. There's a few you hadn't thought about before, so you start looking out for it and convince yourself you do have those symptoms.

That's not a new phenomenon, I think it's the "Doctor in the House" (by Richard Gordon, written in the 50s) books, where the doctor reads through his book of illnesses and concludes he has everything in it except housemaid's knee.

But it's the first generation where people can easily go online and find out the symptoms.

Also, no one ever does a blog about "I had this symptom and it turned out to be nothing" it's always "I had this symptom and it turned out to be the 1 in a million chance it was something nasty". So people get a disproportionate idea on how likely these things are.

So, yes, I'd say that people can go to a doctor thinking they have something and convince them, but I'm not sure it's deliberate. More, they've thought they have it, and their brain is convincing them the more they read.

Private schools may be better at picking up learning difficulties and getting the students assessed. I have a relative who works in further education and they regularly pick up on dyslexic students who have not had any diagnosis or help up until that point. That's awful that a student gets to 16+ without that extra support.

Most mental health conditions could be faked.

I don't know why one would want to - why fake having paranoid schizophrenia?

I have dissociative disorder which is a bit like what used to be known as multiple personality disorder. Can't imagine why anyone would fake having it. It's horrible and unpleasant.

I don’t think the conditions you mention (adhd, anxiety, depression) can be faked with a good psychiatrist
I have a serious m/h condition and regular psychiatrist appointments and from the write ups, can see they are actually observing me in the moment beyond what I’m saying (sounds more creepy than it is) - it’s about how your whole demeanour, body language, tone, eye contact and the emotions and feeling you are radiating, as far as I can tell. Eg they will observe my mood in addition to what I say - and share these observations/thoughts with me.
Maybe a trained actor who really embodies their characters could but I don’t think you can do it just through studying.
I’ve found a bit of variety in insight from psychiatrists though depending on their background

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190521-malingering-when-criminals-fake-diseases#:~:text=%E2%80%9CMalingering%E2%80%9D%20%E2%80%93%20faking%20a%20sickness,Mafia%20figures%20of%20his%20time.

I agree with this. Psychiatrists know how people with genuine psychiatric disorders present so they are not going to be fooled by someone pretending.