Mass psychogenic illness (MPI) or mass hysteria (an outdated term that stirs up visions of panicked people running through the streets) is the rapid spread of illness with signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group originating from a nervous system disturbance. Some of the most common symptoms may include: headache, dizziness, fainting, weakness, a choking feeling, even seizures. There seems to no physical or environmental causes to make these people sick but often these people believe that they have been exposed to toxin or germ. All this seems to come from out of seemingly nowhere and can affect anyone but what exactly is it?
This type of illness has been seen over the centuries and still continues to this day even with (and maybe because of) the easy access to medical information via the internet and the ability of modern man to see a conspiracy in everything. There is still little that is actually known about this condition. There are many qualities to an MPI outbreak including:
- Symptoms that have no reasonable origin
- Symptoms that are transient and benign
- Symptoms that have a rapid onset and recovery
- Occurrence in a specific group
- The presence of extreme anxiety
- Symptoms that seem to be spread via sight, sound, and/or oral communication
- A spread of affliction that moves down the age scale from the older or higher status person
- A prevalence of female participants
One of the earliest cases of this type of illness was recorded in the Middle Ages and were referred to as the dancing manias where groups of people would dance erratically until they would collapse in exhaustion. This affected men, women, and children and could number in the thousands. This was widespread across Europe and often accompanied by fits of howling, stripping, laughing or crying to nearly the point of death. (Kind of sounds like the responses of young women to seeing Elvis and/or the Beatles.) To this day, there seems to be no known cause and it is still unclear if this was a result of real illness or a social phenomenon.
During the anthrax attacks of 2001 on government agencies in the United States, there were over 2300 false anthrax alarms. Many believed they had been exposed and many developed symptoms even though it turned out that they had not been exposed to the bacteria at all. Fear is a powerful thing.
There are also some thoughts that the Cuba and Chinese sonic attacks at the American embassies may have been another example of mass psychogenic illnesses. A directed, quiet sonic weapon at this time is more science fiction than science fact. To do the damage that was suspected would require something that would emit a sound of more than 130 decibels which would equal a roar of four jet engines, hardly a covert weapon. People are capable of translating stress and fear of the unknown into illness and after much research into these attacks, it seems more likely that conversion disorder (def: a mental condition in which a person has neurologic symptoms that cannot be explained by medical evaluation) is the real culprit.
Most recently there has been an example of MPI in Sweden within the children of asylum seekers from the former Yugoslav and Soviet countries and also observed in the children of refuges that had been transferred to the Nauru Regional Processing Centre from Australia. Children would exhibit symptoms of catatonia; falling into a coma-like state upon learning their families were being deported. This has been named resignation syndrome and it has been theorized that there is an element of psychological contagion inherent to the condition where friends and relatives to the afflicted can become affected as well.
Recognizing mass psychogenic illness is the first step in responding to an outbreak and once the diagnosis is made, reassuring the patient important. Often the patients will improve significantly when removed from the environment in which they felt they were first exposed. Many times sufferers do not accept the fact that their illness has a psychological explanation; brought on by stress and anxiety with very real, frightening physical reactions causing even more anxiety and symptoms. In this age of instant access to information, it is best to keep those affected away from the stress and commotion of the triggering event. If this does not alleviate the symptoms, patients may need psychological help such as cognitive therapy in addition to physiotherapy or occupational therapy. In a group setting it is always best to keep the thought in mind that just because someone around you is sick, it does not necessarily mean that you will also get sick and you should leave the licensed professionals to making your diagnoses.
–Janice Willson
Illustration: The Dancing Mania, by Hondius
