Infrared picture of starfish
To: no-list@yahoogroups.com
From: Dennis Budd <nitewing@ku.edu>
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 20:48:51 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: [no-list] Appeal
My response is below, mixed in with the quotes .. all the way to the very end.
On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 starfish@northcoast.com wrote:
Hi
This is a reply to the entire thread that Lynne's message generated, not just her message itself. This is written from the heart, not simply the brain.
It is very powerful. I had the pleasure of meeting Su in Atlanta, and doing a workshop with her. An experience that I will never forget.
Now for the first statement that will get me tarred and feathered off this list.
Well I think I agree with the thrust of the remarks below. I have some technical difference with the semantics. Basically I think you have seen what I see.
I think the concept of "mental illness" is profoundly misleading because it reduces a multi-dimensional part of life that has both blessed and nightmarish dimensions, that deserves to be respected as such, to a "disease" needing to be "ameliorated", if it can't be "cured", and reduces whole realms of experience to supposed "mental" or "brain" disorders.
Yes.
However. When I remember back to what I was experiencing in those days...when I can get close enough to that consciousness to truly begin to remember...the word "illness" totally makes sense...it totally fits what I went through.
Here's where I differ. The word 'illness' reflects the "disease model" of how to understand this phenomenon. The origin of the word 'illness' is in "wickedness." (O. Norse 'ilre'.) That throws in a whole extra spin which is very questionable. Especially, it doesn't ground the description in what we experience. Because we take 'illness' at face value, we might not notice that. In my background, esp. with its strong 'cultural anthropology' focus, this kind of issue is not a picky issue, but a dominant, control question.
When I say here that that the word "illness" totally makes sense, I'm making an experiential statement, not an analytical statement. In other words, I'm stating the way it feels to me, plain and simple, before we start taking the meanings of the words apart.
In the sense of simply expressing what it felt like, it is grounded in my experience. That is one dimension. A phenomenological analysis such as you are making here points out that the illness model actually sets up barriers between us and our experience. That is another dimension.
I didn't at the time think of what I was going through as a disease entity. I assumed it was an inner process gone out of control. One might or might not think of that as a disease entity. I did not. But it felt similar enough that it didn't matter. That's what I mean when I say that the word "illness" totally makes sense.
Thoughts and feelings and obsessions that were not "me" had totally taken me over and there was nothing I could do to become free of them. It was like an "outside" force had entered and was affecting me in the very core of my being. I'm sure there was some awareness somewhere in my subconscious that I was feeding and giving life to this, but it didn't matter...nothing I could do would change it. It is looking back on it that I see that the sensitivities which led me to this place are both a blessing and a curse. So, when I really remember back, and sometimes even in my present experience, the word "illness" makes perfect sense.
What makes sense to me, also indeed from your description, is that you are dealing with a real phenomenon. Some say, in fact it has been said on this list, that we are dealing with an issue of 'hurt feelings'. That has the implication that if we do the required 'emotional work', we can rectify the situation. In fact, such is often the case. However the phenomenon is indeed deeper than that, as you say. It seeps into the very structure of our way of being.
Yes, exactly.
In my read of humanism, I'd try to describe this as being a grammatical challenge I'm putting to you. I think that the use of 'illness' is bad semantics, a poor choice of words. However, the phenomenology you describe is good syntax, i.e. it reflects the structure of reality. So here I will stand and get "tarred and feathered" with you, rather than deny that suffering - not just emotional pain - is a central aspect of the 'medical model' question.
On the one hand, my choice of "illness" very closely reflects what I went through as I experienced it.
On the other hand, I think the point you're making here is well taken.
I'm not going to say it's one or the other.
Dennis
Andrew Phelps
Berkeley, CA