A case of feigned dementia (simulatio dementiae)

The authors' views on the simulation of mental illnesses are distinguished by significant disagreements, reaching at some points to complete contradiction. Some authors, such as, for example, Schüle, in the course of 15 years of psychiatric practice did not encounter a single case of feigned insanity, it is emphasized that the pretense in mental illnesses "exists sooner as a ghostly fact, rather than". regarding the simulation of psychosis Jessen, Sander (out of 190 subjects, I met only two cases of pretense), Moeli, Vingtri nier (out of 43,000 criminals, only one was found to have simulated psychosis) and friend. These authors, as it were, in explaining their conclusions regarding the simulations psychoses say that simulation, in fact, is a symptom of an illness, it is the result of mental disorder, that only a mentally ill person or a subject highly predisposed to mental illness can simulate well, because, according to their opinion, there can be a consistency and coherence, if there is no rudiment of real madness in its foundation procession"(Maudsly). Apparently, prof. Korsakov In his guide, he writes: “in the vast majority of cases, a person who has real inclinations of illness begins to simulate a mental illness”. he says that only especially important reasons can induce a mentally healthy person to simulate insanity"; in addition, he adds that simulators, in the face of the strong mental stress to which they subject themselves, in the conclusion of their experience can continue to be useful.