Dromomania

Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was uncontrollable urge to walk or wander. It has come to be used non-clinically to describe a desire for frequent traveling or wanderlust. Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was uncontrollable urge to walk or wander. It has come to be used non-clinically to describe a desire for frequent traveling or wanderlust. Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was an irresistible urge to aimlessly wander, travel, or walk. Some authors describe patients with this diagnosis as being 'in an automatic state' as they traveled, experiencing partial amnesia of the events of their journeys. Other symptoms included a 'loss of sense of personal identity, ... and impulses to homicide and suicide.' Bioethicist Henk A. M. J. ten Have regards dromomania as equivalent to the DSM IV diagnosis of dissociative fugue and the historical diagnoses of Wandertrieb  (German) and automatisme ambulatoire (French). Dromomania has also been referred to as travelling fugue. Dromomania was regarded as a kind of impulse control disorder similar to kleptomania or pyromania. The most famous case was that of Jean-Albert Dadas, a Bordeaux gas-fitter. Dadas would suddenly set out on foot and reach cities as far away as Prague, Vienna or Moscow with no memory of his travels. A medical student, Philippe Tissié, wrote about Dadas in his doctoral dissertation in 1887. Jean-Martin Charcot presented a similar case he called automatisme ambulatoire, French for 'ambulatory automatism', or 'walking around without being in control of one's own actions.' Many cases of dromomania have been described. Dromomania was primarily described by French psychiatrists. The concept of dromomania was adapted in America into drapetomania, a mental disorder whose primary symptom was running away. This diagnosis was applied only to slaves. Dromomania is one of a constellation of social constructs to describe contemporary nomadic lifestyles, along with bum, brodyaga, hobo, vagrant, divagate, itinerant, vagabond, transient, tramp, rogue, wanderer Within this constellation, dromomania is an extreme pathologizing term.