Feigned Psychosis—A Review of the Simulation of Mental Illness

Abstract

SummaryThe literature on the simulation of psychosis is reviewed and six patients who were thought to be feigning a schizophrenic psychosis were studied. On follow-up, all but one of the patients became overtly schizophrenic. It is argued that the simulation of schizophrenia is a prodromal phase of the psychosis occuring in extremely deviant premorbid personalities.