Examination of Munchausen syndrome by proxy from the perspective of social workers

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to highlight a topic known in a narrow circle and investigated by few, a disease that, despite being interesting and unusual, is difficult to recognize, often even for medical science. This is Munchausen syndrome. There are two types of the disease: in one case, the person suffering from the disease causes health damage to her/himself in order to be noticed by those around her/him, and in the other case, s/he causes a health problem in a person who is extremely important to her/him (it mostly develops in the mother-child relationship and usually the mother is the “abuser”), which can even be permanent or fatal.