> It’s funny, people usually shrug this off as a joke or meaningless occurrence, but I don’t know why the assumption wouldn’t be that this also happens all the time to non-graduate students
Definitely happens when one tries to learn about this stuff on their own.
You mentioned church as one of the traditional ways of giving meaning to suffering. I’ve sometimes been told to “offer up” my suffering for the well-being of another. A friend told me of a priest who, every time he passed a hospital, shook his head and said “all that pain and suffering gone to waste.”
Your comment on the Priests' POV, exemplifies the Catholic Church's colonization of 'suffering' in order to control the obedience of the membership (think of the vulture-like compassion of Mother Teresa) is a good example of how bad this unbalanced suffering can be. Obviously growth is painful, but lauding 'suffering' (masochistically or sadistically) as a cure or spur is possibly unbalanced. Suffering is a frame, and yes a lot of these diagnoses can be used as frames too. https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/sister-wendy-on-love-as-an-obedient
"“all that pain and suffering gone to waste.” means all that pain and suffering unframed by the Catholic Church and thus lost to its imperial mission
Thanks for a lucid and informative take on something that is increasingly impossible to ignore but doesn’t lend itself to casual understanding any more than jello does to being nailed to a wall: the deficiency of current solutions to problems people have always faced and often confronted more successfully in days of yore, despite all the tools and tricks that weren’t available at the time. As far as pharma goes, the well-documented effort to market opiates for casual pain relief and the subsequent consequences is proof enough of the role that sector has played. But you seem to be on to something more fundamental to the problems of suffering and our desperate search for whatever might mitigate it. So keep up the good work.
Couldn't help but laugh at the jello comment. Anyway, thank you for reading and I will definitely keep thinking/writing about what it means to suffer well.
I think this is how is tends to happen. 1) Doctors who put the DSM together look for significant clusters of symptoms from tens of thousands of patient-reported data points. 2) These clusters are codified into diagnoses. 3) Practitioners take this as bona fide science and tend to ignore or shoehorn what doesn't fit neatly inside it. Does that answer your question?
The 'joke' in the hospital where I trained was written as WNL - Within Normal Limits. Truth is it means WE NEVER LOOKED!
Often stopping at the first convenient diagnosis, few will look past that to see if there are other issues/conditions that are significant.
Only one of the many doctors I saw in over 50 years correctly attributed pain in my arms and hands to my inability to move my head fully from side to side. Three unnecessary surgeries, multiple EMG's and finally on Social Security disability after a 4 year wait. It would be another six years before a correct diagnosis and a level 5 ACDF corrected the problem.
I think the correct perspective is in thinking the first conclusion is not always the right one!
Huh, that's awful. I've had similar experiences with medical doctors but not with anything quite so severe. So, I agree with you and think that (unfortunately) people need to do their own research, because so often, little critical thought is given to the process of diagnosis.
Thank you for this post. It reminded me of Szasz's argument about measuring and diagnosing maladies of the soul. (Thomas Szasz " Psychiatry, the science of lies").
Is not the new "identity" found in a diagnosis a new meaning? A new world? A new suffering? I think the neo-pyrrhonists' positions on the 'unbalanced' are a better frame than any traditional Western translation of suffering for the interpretation of Duḥkha. So, in this frame... if there was a DSM entry for 'suffering' people would leap on that diagnosis too.
Yes I do think identity through diagnosis is meaningful. I guess the problem is that you have to stay sick to maintain that identity; getting better becomes an identity crisis. Interesting to think of how it would play out if the DSM included "generalized suffering disorder" or something like that. Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting.
"“graduate student’s syndrome,” seem to be the gateway drug for this pathway... as someone who is mildly not autistic I feel the pull to label all my failings.... It can lead to a pathway of better outcomes, but this identity thang then asks me to join the dark side
Agreed on buddhist psychology and perfectly said in terms of the consumer mentality applied to what it cannot purchase. I hadn't thought of it from that angle specifically and I really like how simple (and true) it is.
Beautiful post. It could be a book.
> It’s funny, people usually shrug this off as a joke or meaningless occurrence, but I don’t know why the assumption wouldn’t be that this also happens all the time to non-graduate students
Definitely happens when one tries to learn about this stuff on their own.
You mentioned church as one of the traditional ways of giving meaning to suffering. I’ve sometimes been told to “offer up” my suffering for the well-being of another. A friend told me of a priest who, every time he passed a hospital, shook his head and said “all that pain and suffering gone to waste.”
Ha! That's a good one :)
Your comment on the Priests' POV, exemplifies the Catholic Church's colonization of 'suffering' in order to control the obedience of the membership (think of the vulture-like compassion of Mother Teresa) is a good example of how bad this unbalanced suffering can be. Obviously growth is painful, but lauding 'suffering' (masochistically or sadistically) as a cure or spur is possibly unbalanced. Suffering is a frame, and yes a lot of these diagnoses can be used as frames too. https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/sister-wendy-on-love-as-an-obedient
"“all that pain and suffering gone to waste.” means all that pain and suffering unframed by the Catholic Church and thus lost to its imperial mission
Thanks for a lucid and informative take on something that is increasingly impossible to ignore but doesn’t lend itself to casual understanding any more than jello does to being nailed to a wall: the deficiency of current solutions to problems people have always faced and often confronted more successfully in days of yore, despite all the tools and tricks that weren’t available at the time. As far as pharma goes, the well-documented effort to market opiates for casual pain relief and the subsequent consequences is proof enough of the role that sector has played. But you seem to be on to something more fundamental to the problems of suffering and our desperate search for whatever might mitigate it. So keep up the good work.
Couldn't help but laugh at the jello comment. Anyway, thank you for reading and I will definitely keep thinking/writing about what it means to suffer well.
Just wondering -
“Diagnosis for a mental illness is based exclusively on patient-reported symptoms..."
Why then is anecdotal evidence usually discounted by many doctors?
I think this is how is tends to happen. 1) Doctors who put the DSM together look for significant clusters of symptoms from tens of thousands of patient-reported data points. 2) These clusters are codified into diagnoses. 3) Practitioners take this as bona fide science and tend to ignore or shoehorn what doesn't fit neatly inside it. Does that answer your question?
The 'joke' in the hospital where I trained was written as WNL - Within Normal Limits. Truth is it means WE NEVER LOOKED!
Often stopping at the first convenient diagnosis, few will look past that to see if there are other issues/conditions that are significant.
Only one of the many doctors I saw in over 50 years correctly attributed pain in my arms and hands to my inability to move my head fully from side to side. Three unnecessary surgeries, multiple EMG's and finally on Social Security disability after a 4 year wait. It would be another six years before a correct diagnosis and a level 5 ACDF corrected the problem.
I think the correct perspective is in thinking the first conclusion is not always the right one!
Huh, that's awful. I've had similar experiences with medical doctors but not with anything quite so severe. So, I agree with you and think that (unfortunately) people need to do their own research, because so often, little critical thought is given to the process of diagnosis.
Thank you for this post. It reminded me of Szasz's argument about measuring and diagnosing maladies of the soul. (Thomas Szasz " Psychiatry, the science of lies").
Ah, he's someone I have to get to one of these days. I'll put it on my list. Thank you for letting me know.
Is not the new "identity" found in a diagnosis a new meaning? A new world? A new suffering? I think the neo-pyrrhonists' positions on the 'unbalanced' are a better frame than any traditional Western translation of suffering for the interpretation of Duḥkha. So, in this frame... if there was a DSM entry for 'suffering' people would leap on that diagnosis too.
Yes I do think identity through diagnosis is meaningful. I guess the problem is that you have to stay sick to maintain that identity; getting better becomes an identity crisis. Interesting to think of how it would play out if the DSM included "generalized suffering disorder" or something like that. Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting.
"“graduate student’s syndrome,” seem to be the gateway drug for this pathway... as someone who is mildly not autistic I feel the pull to label all my failings.... It can lead to a pathway of better outcomes, but this identity thang then asks me to join the dark side
Agreed on buddhist psychology and perfectly said in terms of the consumer mentality applied to what it cannot purchase. I hadn't thought of it from that angle specifically and I really like how simple (and true) it is.