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Christopher Bass

Retired Consultant in Liaison psychiatry [John Radcliffe Hospital]

From 1991 until 2011 I was a Consultant in Liaison psychiatry at the John Radcliffe Hospital and an honorary senior lecturer in the University Department of Psychiatry. My clinical and research interests have always involved patients with pain syndromes and medically unexplained symptoms [somatisation], especially high utilisers of medical out and in-patient hospital care. For 12 years until 2018 I ran the Oxford gender dysphoria clinic based at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

My MD thesis in 1984 concerned patients with non-cardiac chest pain [normal coronary arteries].

From 2005, in collaboration with Dr David Jones, I developed an interest in Fabricated or Induced Illness or FII [what used to be called Munchausen by proxy] and have published widely in this field. I also have an interest in patients with factitious disorders, and provide help and assistance to clinicians from all over the UK in managing these patients. Since 2014 I have been involved with a web group devoted to producing a document to be published by the Royal College of psychiatrists in 2019 devoted to improving the assessment and management of these patients. I am also involved in training junior psychiatrists and lecture widely on this topic.

I have edited or co-edited five books since 1990. Somatisation: Physical symptoms and psychological illness. Blackwell, 1990; Treatment of Patients with Functional Somatic Symptoms (with Mayou R and Sharpe M, OUP, 1995; Key Topics in Psychiatry, Bios, 1996; Hysterical Conversion:Clinical and Theoretical perspectives (with Halligan P and Marshall J) OUP, 2001; and Malingering and Illness Deception (with Halligan P and Oakley D),OUP, 2003. 

Since 2011 I have been actively involved in the UK Functional Neurology WebGroup, a multidisciplinary group of physicians and psychologists who have met annually sine 2011 at a conference. Clinical and research interests are shared relating to a wide spectrum of functional neurological disorders. More recently my clinical work involves medico-legal work, in particular patients with unexplained limb pain.