The Münchhausen syndrome by proxy describes various situations in which one or both parents, but usually the mother, creates or fabricates an illness in the child. Extensive, harmful medical care is the consequence of this unconsciously motivated behaviour. The syndrome in its various presentations overlaps with some forms of child abuse and deviant patterns of medical consumption.

There is an overlap in prevalence and a resemblance in psychodynamics with the chronic factitious disorders. Psychodynamically the child serves as a narcissistic extension of the mother.