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Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

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Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#11

Post by majormajor »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #7
thrown_22 wrote: post #5

It not only deters healing, it makes people act ill when they are not. Social media is filled with people pretending to be sick. If you want some of the most blatant see [0] the disability there isn't three broken ribs requiring a ventilator. Reminds me of Luis the 14th and his anal fistula [1]. Courtiers started faking anal fistulas after the king had an operation to remove his. It got to the point where they would…

See also: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-crazy-like... > Around the Meiji Restoration, when everyone was obsessed with how great foreign stuff was, Japanese medical students went to Germany, learned psychiatry, came back to Japan, and told everyone they were neurasthenic. Being neurasthenic became first a fashion, then a class marker. The idea was that neurasthenics were people who were working too…

That story doesn't exactly end "and then everyone was mentally healthy in Japan happily ever after," though, does it?

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#12

Post by lr4444lr »

The placebo effect to my knowledge has been demonstrably shown powerful enough even to shrink cancer tumors, so why would such a question even be posed at this point? We are just beginning to understand the mind body connection, but it's clear that negativity doesn't help much more than getting one's self to an actual doctor.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#15

Post by pawsforthought »

majormajor wrote: post #10
XorNot wrote: post #9

This seems like an example of taking the giant ocean of people that is Twitter and Tiktok and pretending even 100 crazy people in a population of literally billions represents a "trend" or societal phenomenon.

One might hypothesize that the most active users of Twitter might not be the most representative of the greater population, even... However, any idea along the lines of "people need help, not acceptance" needs to be very carefully discussed, because in the world I grew up in, you didn't get help or acceptance: you got punishment, you got shame, you even sometimes got violence as "treatment." A lot of people out there…

> you even sometimes got violence as "treatment."

For example, electroconvulsive therapy in its early days. To quote the Mayo Clinic [1]:

> Much of the stigma attached to ECT is based on early treatments in which high doses of electricity were administered without anesthesia, leading to memory loss, fractured bones and other serious side effects.

[1]: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/electroconvulsiv...

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#16

Post by dane-pgp »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #7
thrown_22 wrote: post #5

It not only deters healing, it makes people act ill when they are not. Social media is filled with people pretending to be sick. If you want some of the most blatant see [0] the disability there isn't three broken ribs requiring a ventilator. Reminds me of Luis the 14th and his anal fistula [1]. Courtiers started faking anal fistulas after the king had an operation to remove his. It got to the point where they would…

See also: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-crazy-like... > Around the Meiji Restoration, when everyone was obsessed with how great foreign stuff was, Japanese medical students went to Germany, learned psychiatry, came back to Japan, and told everyone they were neurasthenic. Being neurasthenic became first a fashion, then a class marker. The idea was that neurasthenics were people who were working too…

> psychiatrists felt obligated to restigmatize this mental disorder in hopes of limiting its adoption

Or, to put it another way, they felt obligated to shame people into not seeking treatment, in hopes of not having to admit that they didn't know how to help their patients.

Fewer patients, happier doctors, better metrics. Everyone wins, right?

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#17

Post by kradeelav »

Waterluvian wrote: post #3

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have my finger on the pulse of what’s chic, but this line: “…“the gentrification of disability,” how sickness became chic…“ is quite something.

It's true. Certain circles of tumblr, tiktok, and twitter have made it "fashionable" to have mental disorders among themselves in an audience for victim points. (The uncharitable side of me would add "because physical disorders aren't so easily faked".)

This obviously does not negate my sympathy for those with the real disorders - I have some as well. It's enraging to see the real stuff be treated so lightly though.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#18

Post by darth_avocado »

XorNot wrote: post #9

This seems like an example of taking the giant ocean of people that is Twitter and Tiktok and pretending even 100 crazy people in a population of literally billions represents a "trend" or societal phenomenon.

You’ve either not interacted with the younger generations enough or you haven’t noticed it yet, there is an alarming number of people who claim to have some form of disability. And for a huge percentage of them, that’s their personality. Finding people with actual problems that keep it to themselves and not use it as a way to gain advantages in life is becoming harder. Though I will admit, I am largely talking about urban Americans, i am not sure about the rural america. The point being, it’s more than a sample size of 100 tiktokers.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#19

Post by XorNot »

majormajor wrote: post #10
XorNot wrote: post #9

This seems like an example of taking the giant ocean of people that is Twitter and Tiktok and pretending even 100 crazy people in a population of literally billions represents a "trend" or societal phenomenon.

One might hypothesize that the most active users of Twitter might not be the most representative of the greater population, even... However, any idea along the lines of "people need help, not acceptance" needs to be very carefully discussed, because in the world I grew up in, you didn't get help or acceptance: you got punishment, you got shame, you even sometimes got violence as "treatment." A lot of people out there…

I very much agree: my point was that the people who push ideas like this do so by misrepresenting occurrence rates and motivations (social media isn't an insight into people's lives at scale, it's as real as "reality" TV).

Ultimately it's yet another "think of the children!" variant.

Re: Honestly: Does Glorifying Sickness Deter Healing?

#20

Post by TameAntelope »

lr4444lr wrote: post #12

The placebo effect to my knowledge has been demonstrably shown powerful enough even to shrink cancer tumors, so why would such a question even be posed at this point? We are just beginning to understand the mind body connection, but it's clear that negativity doesn't help much more than getting one's self to an actual doctor.

> Placebos won't lower your cholesterol or shrink a tumor. Instead, placebos work on symptoms modulated by the brain, like the perception of pain. "Placebos may make you feel better, but they will not cure you," says Kaptchuk.

[0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-th...

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