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A male patient presents to the doctor, complaining of an inability to move his left arm. Patient reports becoming increasingly enraged at his wife and on several occasions feared he might strike her. Shortly after one argument, his arm became limp. This is an example of: malingering, primary gain, secondary gain, symptoms of amplification, la belle indifference
What is primary gain?
Primary gain produces positive internal motivations. For example, a patient might feel guilty about being unable to perform some task. If he has a medical condition justifying his inability, he might not feel so bad. Primary gain can be a component of any disease, but is most dramatically demonstrated in conversion disorder (a psychiatric disorder in which stressors manifest themselves as physical symptoms without organic causes, such as a person who becomes blindly inactive after seeing a murder). The "gain" may not be particularly evident to an outside observer.