Posted by alexandra_k on September 15, 2006, at 0:13:36
In reply to Re: internet and the manufacture of madness... » alexandra_k, posted by Jost on September 14, 2006, at 22:17:27
> The article actually is about how the internet is a medium for patients to self- (or group-) reinforce an identity that takes as its basis an illness that doesn't "exist."
Yeah I think that is part of it. He also talks about anorexia, however, and I don't think that he is saying (or trying to say) that anorexia is an ilness that doesn't exist. He thinks that the internet can be a medium for those patients to self (or group) reinforce an identity (and behaviours) consistent with the dx of anorexia where those patients may have been improving but for their unwillingness to lose the identity online that they have in virtue of their dx.
(sorry that sounds so garbled)
> He's concerned about ethic dilemmas
yeah. mostly about researchers accessing internet websites where people are displaying photos of their self harm and stuff like that. he said that some of those sites are actually illegal and hence researchers are in an ethical dilemma if they want to study the impact of those kinds of sites on the people who post to the sites when they are risking their internet access through their institution in order to access the sites to study them...
(I wonder if this issue comes up for researchers who want to study such topics as child pornography on the internet?) If you wanted to study chat sites where people are talking about terrorist activities then you might similarly be in an ethics predicament if you felt you needed to access those (illegal) cites in order to conduct your research.)
> and also the harm that may be done to patients who have come to identify themselves as a person with that disorder, and to feel that without the disorder, they have no self.
yeah. if a lot of their identity hangs on their identity as a person with dx x then you can understand that they would be reluctant to give up the dx. that may lead to... an increase in behaviours that lead to... dx x. hence... people get worse.
i wonder if the role he gives to the internet might be a concern with consumer run meetings of people for one kind of dx too? the internet might have a larger version of the problem because you can meet many many more people with dx's that aren't that prevalent.
e.g., the people who wanted to amputate body parts (when there is nothing dysfunctional with that body part).
poster:alexandra_k
thread:684913
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060911/msgs/686097.html