After reading Leslie Jamison’s “Devil’s Bait”, the group came up with the question that in the context of mental or physical illness, is it possible for an outsider free of the illness to fully empathize with the victim, or just sympathize with them? If not, what factors limit an outsider’s ability to empathize? In order to answer this question, the group looks into two sources, “The challenge of Morgellons disease” from Caroline S.Koblenzer and “Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge” from Nancy Nyquist Potter.
The first source is from Caroline S.Koblenzer who is a dermatologist that focus on skin-psyche. In “The challenge of Morgellons disease”, she describes the challenges that the dermatologist is facing about Morgellons disease and provides the possible solution for it. Koblenzer firsts start describes the sensation that the Morgellons’ patients are feeling and the suffering they are going through. Koblenzer explains that the name “Morgellons” was given by Sir Thomas Browne who first describes the symptoms of Morgellons. The patients who have the similar symptoms soon categorized themselves as “Morgellons patients”. Koblenzer states that the anxious patients would usually make up an explanation of the cause and avoid it extremely to prevent the contagion. The author suggests that Morgellons are related to psychiatric conditions and mostly result from the illusion that drugs bring. Then Koblenzer claims that with the internet, more and more people share their experiences about which Morgellons makes the situation even worse. Because it induces people to believe this disease actually exists while it might just be a delusion. She concludes in the end that Morgellons is curable by taking medication like pimozide continuously. The author gives us a detailed description of Morgellons and her opinion that Morgellons is illusional. The professional evidence helps the group to look at Morgellons disease from a different perspective.
The second source is Nancy Nyquist Potter’s “Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge”. In her essay, she looks at sympathy from different views and thinks that empathy is an important value to be effective clinicians. First, she states that importance of empathy in the society and how it can impact on people. She then connects to these ideas to the clinical experience which also requires a rich understanding of empathy. Because for clinicians it’s necessary to understand what the patients are going through and make the patients feel understand. The author also suggests that world traveling would give the clinicians open perspective which helps them to fully understand their patients. Lastly, The author concluded that clinicians need the moral skills to feel empathy with the patients in order to work effectively with them. This source helps the group to understand the importance of clinicians or doctors to have empathy when facing patients with special diseases.
Work Cited
Koblenzer, Caroline S.“The Challenge of Morgellons Disease.” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Mosby, 17 Oct. 2006, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190962206012187?via=ihub.
Potter, Nancy Nyquist. “Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge – Oxford Handbooks.”Oxford Handbooks – Scholarly Research Reviews, 16 June 2017, www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199579563-e-021.