ABSTRACT
Fabricated or induced illness (FII), or as it was formerly known, Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy (MSBP), provides one of the most disturbing and dramatic examples of a female perversion, in which women use the ostensibly caring role of mother, nurse or nanny to inflict harm on children.1 The quote above from the barristers involved in the case against Beverley Allitt, a nurse in the UK who killed four children, including babies in her care, describes the central difficulty in identification of this type of abuse. Positions of nurse and nanny are symbolic maternal roles that are idealised in such a way as to mask the opportunity for cruelty and perversion which they afford. The injured body of the child reveals the inner damage of the perpetrator’s mind.
