ArticleCase reports in ophthalmology
An Overwhelming Desire to Be Blind: Similarities and Differences between Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the Wish for Blindness.
Article in Case reports in ophthalmology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID): Survey of Experts and Development of a Diagnostic Guideline.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The Girl Who Wants to Get Rid of Her Left Leg-Body Identity Dysphoria.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Elective Impairment Minus Elective Disability: The Social Model of Disability and Body Integrity Identity Disorder.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2020Article
- An Investigation of Lower Limb Representations Underlying Vision, Touch, and Proprioception in Body Integrity Identity Disorder.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe urge to be permanently blind is an extremely rare mental health disturbance. The underlying cause of this desire has not been determined yet, and it is uncertain whether the wish for blindness is a condition that can be included in the context of body integrity identity disorder, a condition where people feel an overwhelming need to be disabled, in many cases by amputation of a limb or through paralysis.
objectiveThe aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that people with a desire for blindness suffer from a greater degree of visual stress in daily activities than people in a healthy visual control group.
methodWe created a Likert scale questionnaire to measure visual stress, covering a wide range of everyday situations. The wish for blindness is extremely rare and worldwide only 5 people with an urge to be blind were found to participate in the study (4 female, 1 male). In addition, a control group of 35 (28 female, 7 male) visually healthy people was investigated. Questions addressing issues that may be experienced by participants with a desire to be blind were integrated into the questionnaire.
resultsThe hypothesis that people with a desire for blindness suffer from a significantly higher visual overload in activities of daily living than visually healthy subjects was confirmed; the significance of visual stress between these groups was
conclusionsThe desire for blindness seems to originate from visual overload caused by either ophthalmologic or organic brain disturbances. In addition, psychological reasons such as certain personal character traits may play an active role in developing, maintaining, and reinforcing one's desire to be blind.
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