KM Viray
2. Cotard’s Delusion or “Walking Corpse Syndrome”
Cotard’s Delusion is a rare mental disorder in which a person sincerely believes he or she is missing body parts—such as the brain—or is actually dead. The case was first diagnosed by French neurologist Jules Cotard in 1880 when a woman complained of an unusual predicament: she believed she had no brain, no nerves, no chest, no stomach, and no intestines.
The woman told Cotard she was “nothing more than a decomposing body.” As she could not die a natural death, she had “no need to eat.” It wasn’t surprising, therefore, that the woman was later found dead because of starvation.
This disorder has been connected to a dysfunction in the areas of the brain responsible for recognizing and associating emotions with faces, including the victim’s own. This causes a complete emotional detachment and removes any sense of personal identity when looking at their bodies. Medications can be used to treat the condition, though electroconvulsive therapy has worked better in some cases.
