On October 7, 2011 --- high school student Thera Sanchez, a healthy and well-adjusted 17 year old from LeRoy, NY, laid down to take a nap. She awoke with symptoms of Tourette's syndrome; a condition that causes tics and other involuntary movements; while some patients exhibit uncontrollable verbal outbursts. Within weeks, eleven of her female classmates began to exhibit similar symptoms.
Across the state in Cornith, NY, two female students came down with similar symptoms; including 16 year old Lori Brownell, who may have been the very first case? More recent cases have surfaced, including a male student, and a 36 year old female nurse at the LeRoy school.
Soon after the original cases appeared, school administrators, physicians, and health department officials scrambled for a cause. Physicians soon ruled out several suspicions---including chicanery, certain pathogens, drugs, and any common vaccines that could have been studied further. And environmental testing failed to reveal any links to these cases.
The Dent Institute diagnosed a rare condition called mass psychogenic illness, sometimes referred to as 'mass hysteria.' This is a conversion disorder, which means that anxiety or unconscious conflicts are "converted' into physical symptoms that have the effect of helping the person cope with the anxiety or conflicts.
Historically, MPI mostly afflicts young females in common social groups during a developmental phase called secondary socialization --- this is the period of life when children and young adults are gaining social experience outside the home --- typically in school. For many people this can be a period of heightened anxiety.
Conversion symptoms associated with MPI are quite diverse and sometimes bizarre; they include fainting, dizziness, limb paralysis, muteness, blindness, headaches, and behavior as peculiar as dancing incessantly. A diagnosis of MPI is made when all organic causation is ruled out.
What are the chances that these cases are Tourette's syndrome?
Tourette's mostly afflicts males and is considered a genetic condition. Symptoms usually start slowly, and increase over some time before leveling off. So the chances that over a dozen young females all developed Tourette's within a few weeks of each other, and in one building--- is remote at best.
However, Miss Brownell the 16 year old, who may have been the first person affected, began to notice symptoms while attending a concert in August 2011. It would be another month or more before she fully acquired Tourette's symptoms. On December 24, 2011, Miss Brownell was diagnosed by physicians with Tourette's syndrome.
Did the first environmental tests definitively rule out a toxic causation?
Famed environmentalist Erin Brockovich and her staff are currently investigating the situation first hand. They are determined to re-examine the possibility that environmental factors are related to these cases. It was revealed that a freight train derailed three miles from the LeRoy school in 1970; spilling significant amounts of toxins, including Trichloroethylene; a substance that in combination with soda lime has been proven to cause prolonged neurological dysfunction.
Many parents in LeRoy are dissatisfied with the conversion disorder diagnosis. They are told that their children are victims of an anxiety based disorder that has no known organic medical causation. In light of the chemical spill that the EPA failed to properly clean up, the stories of institutions deceiving the public to avoid litigation, and the school administration's relative lack of cooperation with the Brockovich group; it's easy to understand their skepticism.
The case for Mass Psychogenic Illness.
MPI can spread rapidly, particularly among susceptible young females, which may explain the quick proliferation of cases at the LeRoy school. If MPI is indeed the proper diagnosis, it makes sense that at least one or two of the cases are in fact Tourette's or some other neurological condition that has a genetic, environmental, or autoimmune causation. The rest of the cases may be explained by the following theory of neuropsychology ...
Mass Psychogenic Illness can proliferate when susceptible members of a common social group --- see, hear, or are informed about; 'unusual' behavior by a group member who has achieved high status,or is perceived to give off an air of high status in their susceptible minds.
Some susceptible group members, triggered by the unusual behavior of a member of high status, can acquire MPI via a 'involuntary mimicry process'. By subconsciously imitating the unusual behavior, the social sub-group may maintain it's cohesiveness and social status. Lessening the chances that the high status member will leave the group; thus lowering the groups' perceived status.
The acquisition of this unusual behavior may also function as a form of stress relief---while the stigma associated with these symptoms may in turn become an added stressor in itself. These combined stress factors often feed off each other, locking in symptoms in for a period of time, in turn becoming a stimulus for the spread of MPI to other susceptible members, which sometimes leaks beyond the sub-group.
Who is susceptible to Mass Psychogenic Illness?
Social sub-groups form naturally in schools and other institutions and then often compete with each other for status. This can form stressors that seems to be more apparent in females. These sub-groups, seeking to maintain or raise their social status, may have members predisposed to react to such stressors in an extreme or unusual manner.
The susceptible mind may interpret the unusual behavior of an esteemed member as a threat to the status of the sub-group. To maintain cohesiveness and status, susceptible members may subconsciously acquire the behavior of the esteemed, no matter how unusual the behavior. I call this process 'reverse conformity.'
Prognosis and Treatment
The good new for people afflicted with MPI is that the anxiety often associated with secondary socialization wanes as they transition to adult socialization --- which is the period of development more associated with career, starting families, etc. History tells us that MPI is not a permanent condition, but a transient psycho-neurological condition caused by the stressors that are created while jockying for social position before entering adulthood.
I urge officials on the ground in New York to continue to seek any possible organic causation. This will properly separate the organic based cases from the ones that were caused by 'reverse conformity. It is crucial that anyone afflicted with an organic condition such a Tourette's, to be properly treated.
In the cases where there is no known organic causation, treatment for MPI should include various techniques to reduce stress, to be determined by either a physician or psychologist. Education about MPI should also be included in any treatment.
Recent developments concerning PANDAS
A controversial autoimmune condition called PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Strepococcal infections), is now being considered to have a possible organic link to the New York cases. However, cases attributed to PANDAS, tend to be children aged three--up to puberty. Officials are also looking at the possibility that either PANDAS, environmental factors, or some other organic influence, may contribute to the susceptibility of acquiring MPI.
Walter Romania - Walter Romania is currently writing a 'political psychology' book to be titled "Elements of the Political Psyche". A current resident of ...
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