One of the most common brain disorders is one of the most misunderstood – how functional neurological disorder is both ‘all in your head’ and beyond it

From hysteria to conversion disorder, to psychogenic or psychosomatic illness, functional neurological disorder has gone by many names. anilakkus/iStock via Getty Images Plus

“It’s all in your head.”

By the time many people with functional neurological disorder arrive in our clinic, they have heard these five words more times than they can count. They are told their brain scan was normal. Their electroencephalogram, a test that measures the brain’s electrical activity, is reassuring. “The good news is you don’t have epilepsy,” they’re told.