Morgellons disease is a highly controversial, self-diagnosed condition that involves the emergence of substances or objects from the skin. The unfortunate victims of this condition suffer from the feeling of threads, flecks, fuzz, and/or other creatures moving just beneath the skin or seeping through it. To add a new depth of understanding to the intricacies of this condition, Leslie Jamison’s “Devil’s Bait” tells the story of her trip to Austin, Texas to visit the Charles E. Holman Foundation’s annual conference for health care providers, researchers, and patients of Morgellons (Jamison 43). By being at the conference Jamison was able to truly see into the lives of the many patients suffering from Morgellons. She observed how their search for relief consumed their lives, yet she struggled to fully empathize, by definition, with the feelings of the patients because she could not understand the medical basis of their illness. No doctor seemed to believe any of these people. When victims of Morgellons seek help, clinicians typically refer them to a psychologist to treat the illness as if it were all caused by the mind. Yet, the author still found herself relating to some of the patients, and even understanding their feelings on a surface level. Jamison then asked, “Is it wrong to call it empathy when you trust the fact of suffering but not the source?” This raises a broader, yet valid, question. 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?

To answer this question, two unique articles, with different perspectives were analyzed. The first, “The Challenge of Morgellons Disease” by Caroline S. Koblenzer, MD., takes a predominantly factual and medical approach to understanding the positions of patients suffering from emotions and symptoms that are foreign to the listener. Despite the specificity of this article in its focus on Morgellons, it still gives insight into how to doctors attempt to understand and treat those who suffer from an illness that is not understood by anyone but its victims. Clinicians must be capable of empathizing in order to establish effective relationships and a sense of trust with their patients.

The article discusses how dermatologists go about treating patients who present themselves as having Morgellons. Due the power and accessibility of the internet, the news about Morgellons is easily found by patients who decide to search the right words. Anyone can suspect themselves of having Morgellons after reading the information found on the “Morgellons Research Foundation” website (Koblenzer 921). However, there are still no positive confirmatory tests to suggest that the phenomena that define Morgellons actually exists. Thus leading dermatologists to come to the conclusion that the condition must be one propagated solely by the brain or other contributing mental factors. So, clinicians have now become aware of the phenomena and have each developed their own effective way of working with the patients of Morgellons so that they accept one form of medication that is known to be effective (Koblenzer 921). What is crucial about this approach is the use of empathy on behalf of the doctor. “It is important that one acknowledges to the patient that what the patient describes is exactly what the patient experiencing” (Koblenzer 921). In sum, acknowledging the patient’s pain allows one to better empathize with their other life circumstances and thus develop a “therapeutic relationship” and implement effective treatment(Koblenzer 921).

The second article, “Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge” by Nancy Nyquist Potter, takes on patients from a psychiatric perspective (Potter 1). Rather than using empathy as a tool to implement treatment, this article views empathy as crucial for developing an understanding of any patient in order to establish a healthy patient doctor-relationship and in turn find a treatment that best fits that individual patient.

First one must look past the general information about a patient and “recognize the subjectivity of that patient while feeling and expressing empathy towards him or her” (Potter 3). Next, one must force themselves to recognize that the patient’s life and situation has a significance, all the while using practical reasoning to guide your empathic actions. How does one empathize with the patient? The answer is given two-fold. The article suggests that empathy is a virtue that anyone can choose. “Place-taking” alone is not empathic (Potter 5). Empathy involves the conscious act of emotion that an individual makes as a result of their attitudinal orientation that can be learned and is voluntary (Potter 9). In addition to empathizing with the average patient, the article states that one can empathize with the mentally ill by practicing a unique process called “world-traveling”, whereby an individual is able to understand not only a particular mental illness but also “ how that specific person experiences his or her world” (Potter 11). By traveling to the patient’s world, one can understand “what it is to be them and what it is to be ourselves in their eyes”, thus allowing the most effective form of treatment or care to be provided (Potter 13).

Both of theses articles will pave the way for an in depth analysis of the question at issue.

Works Cited

Jamison, Leslie. The Empathy Exams: Essays. Graywolf Press, 2014.

Potter, Nancy Nyquist. “Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge”. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Edited by K.W.M. Fulford, Martin Davies, Richard G.T. Gipps, George Graham, John Z. Sadler, Giovanni Stanghellini, and Tim Thornton. Oxford University Press, 2015.

Koblenzer MD, Caroline S.. “The challenge of Morgellons disease”. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Vol. 55, issue 5. American Academy of Dermatology, Inc., 2006.