Masters - Differing Hypotheses

However, whilst my opinion supports that of pseudocyesis being caused by a chemical imbalance in the pituitary gland there are those who do not support this claim. Sultana (2012) quite rightly highlights the fact that pseudocyesis is not known to have a direct underlying cause. Whilst Gaskin (2012) argues in her research commentary that she believes that the notion of pseudocyesis being viewed as a psychiatric condition only, is too narrow in its thinking and suggests there may be dual diagnoses underlying the pseudocyesis presentation. Gaskin’s view is supported by Kornischka’s (2003) case study findings of a fifty one year Ghanaian woman who suffered with pseudocyesis; Kornischka concludes that the causation of the non-pregnancy was a multi-faceted one made up of both psychiatric and psychological elements. Further to this still is the programme of research by Seffah (2004) who carried out sonographic investigations into women who had presented with symptoms of a distended abdomen and apparent pregnancy. The results of the sonographic investigations Seffah suggested evidenced that there was a high rate of misdiagnosis of much more common physical conditions and that the patients were often actually suffering from other illnesses such as fibroids, benign ovarian tumours, cancer of the cervix and obesity. This theory of physical illnesses being misdiagnosed as a pregnancy has been presented by several other authors of case studies, with Hernandez-Rodriguez (1994) citing systemic lupus erythematosus as causing a misdiagnosis of pseudocyesis, and Yeh (2012) citing that a urinary tract infection complicated by urine retention resulted in the misdiagnosis of a physical condition. Then moving on from the theory of physical conditions being misdiagnosed we have the view of Ibekwe (2008) who puts forward the psychological theorisation that it is a woman’s perception of inherent powerlessness within a patriarchal society that leads to her ultimately developing pseudocyesis and that this desire to conform to societal expectation is what subconsciously initiates a phantom-pregnancy. Again, the notion of a deep seeded psychological reason being behind the pseudocyesis was put to the medical community in Hendricks-Matthews (1993) case study, where it was concluded that an adolescent incest survivor seemingly shielded herself from her involvement in an incestuous relationship by developing a false pregnancy which also paradoxically confronted the reality of her incestuous relationship at the same time. These differing hypotheses for the onset of pseudocyesis can be used to form four main camps of academic theory; the psychiatric chemical imbalance theory, the dual-diagnoses theory, the physical misdiagnosis theory and the psychological desire theory. However none of these theories can be proved or disproved at this stage without further rigorous academic and clinical research. My dissertation seeks to add to this area of work by interviewing nurses and understanding their lived experiences when caring for women with pseudocyesis.