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An iatrogenic artifact is a disease made up by doctors, often a diagnostic trend or fad that has become or is expected to become obsolete or discredited.
Examples of diseases considered or accused of being iatrogenic artifacts include nymphomania, hystero-epilepsy, repressed memory, autogynephilia, and multiple personality disorder. Hypersexuality describes human sexual behavior at levels high enough to be considered clinically significant. ... Hystero-epilepsy is an alleged disease discovered by 19th-century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. ... A repressed memory, according to some theories of psychology, is a memory (often traumatic) of an event or environment which is stored by the unconscious mind but outside the awareness of the conscious mind. ... Look up autogynephilia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Overview In psychiatry, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is the current name of the condition formerly listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) and Multiple Personality Syndrome. ...
In many cases, it has been shown that "experts" who believe in the disease are able to observe or even induce symptoms matching the disease's description in suggestible patients. In the case of hystero-epilepsy, it was shown that moving those allegedly afflicted with the disease into different settings made their symptoms disappear.
The concept of iatrogenic artifact has important implications for those who diagnose "diseases" of behavior.
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