A Cross-Cultural Values-Based Approach to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dissociative (Conversion) Disorders

Abstract

This case report presents the story of a young woman of Romani descent with a mixed dissociative (conversion) disorder within the contextual evidence-based and value-based medical framework. By painting the picture illustrating the course of her illness and the circumstances leading to the last clinical episode, compelling her most recent hospitalization, we delineate the contrast between common clinical phenomenology and the additional layers of the patient’s beliefs and values. Thus, we emphasize the importance of expanding the one-dimensional mainstream evidence-based approach, not only in cases of cross-cultural doctor-patient interactions but also in general medical practice, since the health attitudes and illness behaviors of every individual are influenced by their values and beliefs. In addition, the contemporary notion of medicine as a factual science requires a paradigm shift toward integrative multifaceted approaches if we as doctors are to treat human beings and not merely diseases.