la belle indifference
See also: la belle indifférence
English
[edit]
Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From French la + belle + indifférence.
Noun
[edit]la belle indifference (uncountable)
- (psychiatry) A naive, inappropriate lack of emotion or concern for the perceptions by others of one's disability. Traditionally assumed to be seen in persons with conversion disorder, but evidence does not necessarily support this.
- 2006, Stone J, Smyth R, Carson A, Warlow C. La belle indifférence in conversion symptoms and hysteria: Systematic review. British Journal of Psychiatry. 188(3):204-209. doi:10.1192/bjp.188.3.204
- The available evidence does not support the use of la belle indifférence to discriminate between conversion symptoms and symptoms of organic disease. The quality of the published studies is poor, with a lack of operational definitions and masked ratings. La belle indifférence should be abandoned as a clinical sign until both its definition and its utility have been clarified.
- 1919, Oskar Pfister, The psychoanalytic method, trans. Charles Rockwell Payne, publ. Moffat, Yard, and Company, New York, pg. 496:
- Even now, one pays attention to the complex-indicators which we have studied, especially the physical ones (blushings, twitchings, strikingly soft or loud, quick or slow speech, smiling upon the recounting of severe suffering ("La belle indifference"), symptomatic movements, etc).
- 2009, Giampiero Arciero, Guido Bondolfi, Selfhood, Identity and Personality Styles, John Wiley and Sons, →ISBN, page 171:
- La belle indifference is a way of pretending nothing is happening: it represents a way of showing one's paralysis to others by manipulating their judgment through an attitude of indifference.
- 2006, Stone J, Smyth R, Carson A, Warlow C. La belle indifférence in conversion symptoms and hysteria: Systematic review. British Journal of Psychiatry. 188(3):204-209. doi:10.1192/bjp.188.3.204