I'll be very grateful to anyone who can tell me what this word is, as I've been trying to figure it out for over a year now.
It is the name of a syndrome where a mother keeps her children sickly and malnourished because she relishes the attention she gets from well-wishers.
The lady towards the end of the movie Sixth Sense (the one that kills her daughter by poisoning her soup and is unmasked when the daughter's ghost tells the little boy about it) has this syndrome.

I'm pretty sure the name of the syndrome is German. The recent A Word A Day email "Munchausen Syndrome" reminded me of it.

thank you!
Cory
coryf@rocketmail.com
Please email me if you know it.