What is psychosomatic blindness and why do people get it?

Answer 1

Psychosomatic blindness is a conversion disorder in which an individual reports being blind without any physiological etiology. It mainly affects the sensory system (e.g., blindness) and nervous system (e.g., paralysis) and is usually transient. It often exhibits inconsistencies (e.g., the "blind" person is able to navigate around barriers), Because the physiological mechanism is not actually damaged and can still influence unconscious processing, it therefore results from an inhibition or re-organization of neural pathways that prevent sensory information from reaching conscious awareness. As the exact etiology of consciousness and what neurological activity produces what conscious experience remains a mystery, so does the exact etiology of psychosomatic symtoms/conversion disorders.

Freud believed that the anxiety of the psyche was sometimes "converted" into physical (aka, somatic) form for lack of a more regular or appropriate place to go (conservation of psychic energy).

It can be caused by traumatic events. In some such cases, the afflicted body part will have been "guilty" of some act or failure, thus providing the mind/brain a reason to inhibit conscious use of it.