"Why would anyone deliberately try to create illness or injury? That's the startling subject of the extraordinary new book, Secrets Unraveled: Overcoming Munchausen Syndrome, co-written by a psychologist and his remarkable patient. Munchausen Syndrome, or Factitious Disorder, is a rare and intriguing condition where the person repeatedly and secretively tries to create illness or injury in an attempt to get attention and love. Hundreds of hospitalizations can occur in a patient's life, with medical staff, family, and friends left in the dark about why such a thing is happening. Patients will often travel from hospital to hospital fooling medical professionals. In the direst cases, they die. Dr. Thomas G. Hall is a clinical psychologist who treated such a patient. Raised under terrifying abuse by her father, a Holocaust survivor, the patient begins the pattern of creating illness and injury in herself in order to feel a semblance of control in what is a very dangerous world for her. Secrets Unraveled: Overcoming Munchausen Syndrome is Dr. Hall's attempt to lay bare what happens to people with this condition, and offer explanation and insight into such a baffling and complex disorder. Delving exhaustively into the patient's abusive childhood and her mental disorder, the doctor finds innovative treatment that generates a startling outcome. Inspirational for both the layperson and the clinician and for anyone suffering from this disorder, Secrets Unraveled: Overcoming Munchausen Syndrome presents a skillfully documented case of recovery through psychotherapy"--Publisher's description.