PSYCHOLOGY: Gypsy Rose Blanchard, Dee Dee & Munchausen by Proxy

How did Dee Dee Blanchard convince doctors for nearly two decades that her healthy daughter was dying, and was Gypsy Rose a murderer or a victim?

Trigger warning: This episode discusses child abuse, medical abuse and murder.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy break down Munchausen by proxy, known in the DSM-5 as factitious disorder imposed on another, through the case of Dee Dee and Gypsy Rose Blanchard. Dee Dee convinced doctors that Gypsy had leukemia, muscular dystrophy and more, kept her in a wheelchair she didn’t need, and put her through surgeries and a feeding tube, until Gypsy and Nicholas Godejohn killed her in Springfield, Missouri, in 2015. We cover Hulu’s The Act with Patricia Arquette and Joey King, and the HBO documentary Mommy Dead and Dearest.

Cathy brings the forensic lens: competency, culpability, the 10-year sentence, and how family courts handle personality disorders. Together we look at why the doctors were fooled, the narcissistic and borderline traits behind the disorder, and what a childhood with no stable identity does to a person.

Covered in this episode:

• Dee Dee Blanchard and Gypsy Rose Blanchard
• Munchausen by proxy / factitious disorder imposed on another (DSM-5 criteria)
• Factitious disorder imposed on self, malingering and the differential diagnosis
• The Act (Hulu, 2019) with Patricia Arquette, Joey King and Chloë Sevigny
• Mommy Dead and Dearest (HBO, 2017)
• Nicholas Godejohn and the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard
• Hurricane Katrina and the “lost” medical records
• Warning signs doctors miss, and why electronic health records matter
• Gypsy Rose’s plea deal, sentence and competency
• Personality disorders in custody evaluations

Clinical themes: factitious disorder imposed on another, medical child abuse, narcissistic and borderline personality traits, differential diagnosis, malingering, the savior complex in clinicians, isolation as control, identity formation, puberphonia, competency and culpability.

An update: Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released on parole in December 2023.A note: our comments on Nicholas Godejohn’s possible diagnoses are clinical opinion based on public reporting, not a diagnosis. We have never assessed him.

Related episodes:

• CULTS: Lori Vallow Daybell & Chad Daybell — The Doomsday Couple
• PSYCHOLOGY: The Cell, Jennifer Lopez & Inside a Serial Killer’s Mind
• PSYCHOLOGY: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer & Henry Lee Lucas

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Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

Until then... sleep safe. 😴
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