After Reading Jonson’s chapter, “God That Was Awesome,” my group and I decided to revolve our research around whether or not public shaming should be regulated on Social Media. Throughout the chapter, we were given insight on how rapidly social media can escalate situations from an ignorant post, to the destruction of an individual’s reputation. To illustrate, Justine Sacco, a Journalist, make a twitter post commenting on AIDS. Her intentions were to be humorous; however, the response she received did not reflect her motive. As a result, she was lost her career and she was forced to live with the burden of being another victim of public shaming. Based on the examples of public shaming found in the chapter, we began to contemplate on if it is possible to prevent instances like this from occurring by implementing regulations. Because of this, we found two scholarly sources that provide solutions for this question with an argument and concrete evidence.

The first source is a journal entry by  Kristine Gallardo called “Taming the Internet Pitchfork Mob.” Within this reading, the author elaborates how social media has evolved to become this “explosive” (Gallardo) platform that has changed the nature of shaming. Since social media is so accessible, posts and comments pile up quickly, especially if there are several people who feel strongly about the same issue. Most of this time, the owner of the post is targeted instead on meaning of what he or she said. Due to this, that person is ruined by complete strangers.  This source emphasizes the fact that because Instances like this have occurred so frequently, the issue becomes a dichotomy between taking legal steps to control everyone or teaching people to be more cautious about what they put online.

Going along this idea,  second source, “Online Shaming and the Right to Privacy,” by Emily Laidlaw includes a variety of information regarding online platforms and whether people are guaranteed to have freedom while using them. Although this source has several aspects that relate to our research, one thing that stands out is how the author distinguishes between “rightfully knocking someone” (Laidlaw) and humiliation. Rightfully knocking someone basically justifies public shaming on the grounds of punishing someone due to their negative actions. Conversely, humiliation deals with wrongfully attacking someone online when he or she did not deserve it. In relation to our argument, it is important we determine what defines public shaming before focusing on regulations.

Works Cited

Kristine Gallardo. “Taming the Internet Pitchfork Mob: Online Public Shaming, the Viral Media Age, and the Communications Decency Act.” Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Tech. L, vol. 19, 2017, 721-746.

Laidlaw, Emily. “Online Shaming and the Right to Privacy.” Faculty of Law, University of Calgary, 2017.

Ronson, Jon. “So, You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.” Riverhead Books, 2015.

Noah Mullane

Summary

For my research paper I need to have two sources summarized so I shall start by summarizing “Online Shaming and the Right to Privacy” by Emily B. Laidlaw first and “Taming the Internet Pitchfork Mob: Online Public Shaming, the Viral Media Age, and the Communications Decency Act” by Kristine Gallardo second.

“Online Shaming and the Right to Privacy” starts by telling the read what to expect and lets us know that this paper is focusing more on the broad subject of public shaming in the present day and how it is dealt with legally around the world. Specifically the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, and the United States of America. Shame is considered not to belong to any one category and more of a tool employed by all. It talks about the difference between shaming and privacy invasion vs. shaming and offense taken. It does this by splitting shaming into vigilantism, bullying, bigotry, and gossiping. Vigilantism is people going out of there way to find people doing wrong. Bullying, “any behavior performed through electronic or digital media by individuals or groups that repeatedly communicates hostile or aggressive messages intended to inflict harm or discomfort on others” ([30], Robert Tokunaga quoted, p. 3) was quoted in the text as a definition. This part was mostly what you expect when it comes to online bullying, ruined lives and lost lives. Bigotry “concerns an identifiable group attacked on the basis of their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, colour or ethnic origin” (quoted from text). Seems that mostly women are in trouble when it comes to this and it’s not be they started it. Finally gossiping, not inherently bad but can lead to large problems. After going over these forms the paper moves on to the structure of online shaming. That some of the worst comments, the ones the law can do something about normally appear in larger groups of public shaming. In this portion it is acknowledged that the law has very limited response ability for large group shaming. It is also in this part that talk of change of a behavior is acknowledged as a hard if impossible window to stay in. After that the paper enters its main topic, privacy.  Privacy is broken into three parts dignity, privacy in public places and social privacy. Dignity is involved in many instruments for human rights and yet go undefined. Here shame is seen as something that can get to one’s core and and shatter it. Dignity is fragile and dependent on many different things while equally affected by many things. Privacy in public is a difficult thing to deal with legal due to the fact that it is happening in the public domain. As far as the laws in America are concerned privacy in public in none existent. Though the same can be said about the internet in general. Over all public privacy is more the ability to leave the public and not protection from what is done in public. Social privacy is the want to be apart of society without the fear of being publicly shamed. The thought of being social and safe. Though the question of is anything private in public comes up again. Which goes to privacy being up to the person and yet it is flawed in so many ways in that the person is their own defence. Finishing up the paper talks about if regulation public shaming is possible with so many ways for shame to be achieved.

Now on to “Taming the Internet Pitchfork Mob: Online Public Shaming, the Viral Media Age, and the Communications Decency Act”. First we are ment with the introduction of public shaming quickly followed by Justine Sacco’s story of shame. Which is followed by the best advice to avoid public shaming in my opinion, think before you speak, tweet, post, or comment. This leads into not stories but examples of people who had their lives ruined with public shaming. Then it starts to hit the main topic, it is hard to take any real legal action due to many difficulties. Farther in we see a breth history on public shaming and move onto the start of online shaming. The focus from there was the point that if a social norm was violated then the chance of public shaming grew. It was also seen that public shaming could be used in any sense as long as enough people joined in. This lead into anonymity while online, simply put if no one knows it’s you  it is much easier to say hurtful things. It also goes back to the difficulties of finding who ever posted the comment, in the actual off line world. After that the paper enters the field of torts and explains Defamation which is a state-law claim, so the applicable elements vary slightly from state to state, as  existing to curb undue harm to individuals’ reputations. The problem is how hard it is to meet all the requirements or to use it against someone as it relies on falsehood. Next it gets into the Communications Decency Act and ways of regulating with their individual downfalls. It also talks about whether holding the site responsible for post was possible or not. Site with no filtering actual didn’t have to worry about this due to not taking responsibility from the start of what was on their site. While the 21st century policy, any site that had filters to stop obscene content couldn’t be held liable for a user’s post if it insulted someone so they could continue to censor obscene things. This meant that just about all sites couldn’t be held liable about their users. Issues did arise but judges have been weary in how they handle cases due to the difficulty of getting around Section 230 (section in Communications Decency Act) immunity for web sites. Section 230 has been the center of many legal debates on whether there should be change or not, due to the change  having a chance to go wrong. Though this is not to say that Section 230 can’t be used against public shaming, for example it allows the site to check post for shaming or even give warning that they may start to shame someone. The idea of the warning is to make a would be shamer think about the effects of there would be shaming post. At this point the paper talks about the conser of freedom of speech. Though the warning idea answers that question because it doesn’t take down or stop the post it just makes the poster aware. After that the paper enters the conclusion wrapping up with the simple think before you post.

Works Cited

Gallardo, Kristine. “Taming the Internet Pitchfork Mob: Online Public Shaming, the Viral Media Age, and the Communications Decency Act.” Heinonline, drive.google.com/file/d/0B0ljeoGlfu6MSDZtSEpUWUYyYk0/view?ts=59e8b27e.

Laidlaw, Emily B. Online Shaming and the Right to Privacy. www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/6/1/3/htm.

As the group who decided to use the article on Morgellons disease as their inspiration for the research paper arose the 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 with them? To address this question two sources have been identified for reference, Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge by Nancy Nyquist Potter and The Challenge of Morgellons Disease by Caroline S. Koblenzer MD. The first, takes the perspective of someone with a philisopical background, the second, a physician who deals with mentally ill patients.

Within Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge Potter goes into depth about how empathy is a combination of many different concepts. Specifically, focusing on clinicians needing empathy to be able to effectively treat their patients. Potter goes through the processes of how one is able to attain empathy and describes the difficulties of having empathy for a person who one cannot fully understand due their condition, specifically their mental condition, that they are in. She elaborates on a concept called “world traveling”, an idea of Iris Murdoch, in which the subject trying to empathize towards another person must place themselves within the other person’s world; the subject needs to be open to experiencing the other person’s world and everything that comes with it. Potter also touches on the fact that in order for the clinician to be effective in their treatment they have to disassociate the patient from the disease; the patient has to be, in their mind, separate from the disease. The idea that the clinician needs to be open to world traveling and needs to be able to separate the patient from the disease within their mind allows the clinician to have empathy for the patient they are treating. Potter does not specifically state if the extent of the empathy formed is effective enough to give the necessary treatment provided. However, he does touch on the fact that the empathy that would be the best is actually unattainable because although one can know all of the facts of a person, if they are not that person, they will never actually know what that person is going through. Overall, Potter comments on the way empathy should be attained for patient’s clinicians have a hard time understanding, specifically referring to mentally ill patients. In the end Potter is uncertain if even the empathy described is effective enough to provide the necessary treatment for the patient, but she is certain that treatment without this empathy is ineffective.

The Challenge of Morgellons Disease written by Dr. Caroline S. Koblenzer presents a short, but detailed description of Morgellons disease and an effective approach to treatment of the disease for patients who suffer from it. Dr. Koblenzer describes Morgellons disease and the sensations the patients feel. She goes further to state that there are a more affected patient population who feel the need to know what is going on and they themselves dive deeper into the mystery of what is protruding out of their skin. Dr. Koblenzer proposes the idea that in order to treat Morgellons patients effectively one should treat the patients with treatments for the skin, but also treat the underlying psychological cause of the disease. Dr. Koblenzer argues that one of the crucial treatments for these patients is to treat them in a way that such that they feel that what they tell the doctor is being received; the patient should not feel “brushed off” by the doctor. Overall, Dr. Koblenzer comes to the conclusion that in order to effectively treat patients with Morgellons disease one needs to be able to treat them in a way that they feel recognized as well as understand that the condition for them is their reality. In essence, the physician needs to be able to empathize with them, or at least make the patient believe that they are, whether or not it is possible to empathize with a mentally ill patient, like a Morgellons patient, is what will be discussed in the formal paper addressing the question proposed earlier.

Works Cited:

Koblenzer, Caroline S. “The Challenge of Morgellons Disease.” Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, vol. 55, no. 5, 1 Nov 2006, pp. 920-922. Science Direct, PlumX.

Potter, Nancy Nyquist. “Empathic Foundations of Clinical Knowledge.” Oxford Handbooks Online, May 2013, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.013.0021.

“God That Was Awesome” is an essay written by Jon Ronson, is about public shaming, the different ways it comes about, and should public shaming be stopped. The essay starts with Ronson talking us through the day of one Justine Sacco. Ms. Sacco had made some bad jokes on twitter. These jokes were meant to mock stupid white privilege ideas, but ended up being miss interrupted as racist. Unfortunately for Ms. Sacco her tweets  ended up becoming famous in a bad way. Long story short Ms. Sacco had he life ruined, thanks to thousands and thousands of people posting on her twitters. She lost her job and she was turned into this racist monster online. At this point Ronson filled us in on how his interview went with her. While it was obvious that she was not ok at the moment, there was some hope that she would bounce back. At this point public shaming looks like it is the worst thing imaginable. Then Ronson went to talk with Ted Poe. A judge known for using public shaming as a legal punishment in court. Ronson is ready to meet the devil when he goes to see him. Though as he talks with him he finds out that while public shaming sounds cruel, it can have some benefits. Ronson finds that this shaming can be what it takes to set people on the right path, and can even be healing. This is were he gets to talk to a man sentenced by Mr. Poe, Mike Hubacek. Mr. Hubacek killed two people while drunk driving. His punishment was to stand outside a school with a sign that said “I killed two people while driving drunk”. Ronson was expecting to hear the worst, but got something else entirely. Mr. Hubacek what happy that he was punished as he was. He said that be for the punishment he was losing himself and that after he had a purpose again. People even encouraged him that things would be ok while he was holding the sign. Now Ronson had a dilemma, he was supposed to find public shaming as a horrible thing but now he had prof of the opposite, though he also still had his original evidence that it was bad.  It is here that his essay goes from just being a popular writing piece and starts asking the scholarly questions, or at least allowing you to grasp them yourself.

Ronson’s essay is good but it by no means is a scholarly research paper. Though that does not mean we can’t take the message and make it into one. As I said in the beginning Ronson’s essay is about public shaming, the different ways it comes about, and should public shaming be stopped. With this knowledge we can look up things revolving around these things. Find so actual facts and make real arguments about something instead of this point of view written paper.

In the NPR podcast “The Problem with the Solution” the story of Jackie Goldstein’s journey to Geel and what she discovered there is depicted. This podcast points out how the stigma of mental illness is part of the problem. The speakers use the example of Geel to provide evidence that the best treatment for mental illness may be to treat the patients as though they are not mentally ill. In Geel, the mentally ill are treated like normal people, they are given to volunteers who don’t know their mental illness and don’t care. They find through observation that this treatment is far better than common treatment  modalities in the United States, where patients are dehumanized and treated pharmacologically and with little human interaction. This raises the question:  Do humans construct false ideas of what is normal? Since possible solution to the treatment of mental illness, is to treat the “mentally ill” as though they are perfectly normal, it leads us to believe that they may not actually have a problem to begin with, only that they deviate from human perception of normalcy.

This question is important because of many conflicting and polarizing issues. It is very clear historically, that humans find problems with others for self promotion or benefit. These issues are often believed blindly as they are integrated into our culture. One example of this is: Whether homosexuality is a mere deviation from the norm or whether it is caused by some developmental problem. Another type of ‘false idea” is based on an illogical conclusion. For example, the reason why African –American males represent the largest racial group in American prisons, is because they did not have a “normal” upbringing.  Although quite different, both these examples have one factor in common, they are perpetuated by the need of a large segment of the American population to justify core beliefs.  These “core beliefs” have a primary benefit of excluding those who do not fit a perceived norm from financial, educational or societal benefits. For instance in States which do not recognize gay marriage, gay couples cannot claim tax relief. African American families are often shunned and made to feel uncomfortable in many neighborhoods because of the belief that members of broken black families are criminals destined for prison. The list could go on, but it is obvious that many issues in America and around the world, derive from a false belief in what is normal and how people should be treated based on that belief.

Work Cited:

Hanna Rosen, Aliz Spiegel. “The Problem with the Solution.” NPR Invisibilia, 2016

Morgellons disease is a self-diagnosed condition that involves the emergence of substances or objects from the skin. Victims of the disease experience threads, flecks, fuzz, larvae and more seeping from their skin or moving just beneath it. However, the primary struggle of these victims is not finding a cure, it is getting their doctors and families to believe them. The disease was coined in 2001 when a mother, Mary Leitao, sought a diagnosis for her child who felt as though bugs were crawling under his skin. When several doctors failed to find an issue with her son, they began to diagnose Mary with Munchausen syndrome by proxy. So, Mary created a diagnosis herself, thus Morgellons was born.

This excerpt by Leslie Jamison follows the author on her journey to Austin, Texas to be a part of the annual conference led by an advocacy organization called the Charles E. Holman Foundation. The conference welcomed victims, researchers, and healthcare providers to meet and discuss the many aspects and developments of the disease. During the visit, the author met many unique victims suffering from their own variation of Morgellons, all the while she questions the legitimacy of their ailments. A woman named Sandra suffers from wriggling larva seeping from her skin while she bathes (Jamison 50). Dawn, a nurse from Pittsburgh, was covered in the white patches that results from excessive scratching of lesions (Jamison 31). One person that the author interacted with on a deeper level was a woman named Kendra. She suspects that the fibers that she finds coming from her skin are due to Morgellons, and she hopes to get a microscope session at the conference to “see more” and finally understand what’s going on inside of her, why the “things” she tries to get out seem to be moving away from her (Jamison 36).

People are willing to put themselves through copious amounts of pain in order to relieve themselves from the psychological suffering of their contagion.Through Kendra, the author is able to deeply analyze the psychological intricacies that are involved with the disease.   Kendra is walking on the edge of diagnosis. She is sick of trying to figure out her symptoms herself, being at the conference helps her feel like she’s not the only one. Otherwise she would start to think that she’s crazy again, like the doctors have been telling her. Victims like Kendra soon become trapped in a life that revolves around keeping “them” at bay, “them” being the foreign objects or creatures that reside within them. The conference gives the victims the empathy that doctors and onlookers have denied them, but it does not offer a cure. If anything, the conference provides a satisfactory disappointment in the fact that their suspicions of a lack of cure are confirmed. In addition, it offers a safe place for the disease-consumed victims to share their stories and finally be themselves.

This raises the question, does expressing empathy to victims validate the existence of Morgellons? And if so, does this validity provide freedom from the grasp of the disease or secure the victim’s’ life-long suffering? These are important questions to ask because they challenge not only the attitude with which one should approach a situation such as this, but it also brings the light a reason that doctors may be denying the disease’s existence. Perhaps rejecting the disease will in turn allow victims to move on, rather than accept their fate and continue harming themselves in an effort to find internal peace.

Works Cited

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

“The Problem with the Solution” is a podcast that introduces the differences in methods for treating mentally ill patients in the United States versus that abroad. Interestingly, the narrator, Ellen Baxter’s mother also suffered from a mental illness, which was treated in the States. However, the narrator points out the detrimental effects of taking medications, for it snatched away her mother’s liveliness, personality and attitude. Baxter’s realization of the inefficacy of this approach initiated her to seek for a way that will properly treat those diagnosed with mental illnesses while keeping them from losing a sense of his/her identity.

In her journey to find other methods, she came upon a town name Geel in Belgium. The town’s collective and revolutionary approach towards mentally ill people was to consider them as a part of the family – sort of like adopting a child. The solution here for treating these people was to have no solution. In this case, the best way to deal with this conflict was to learn how to accept and embrace these people. They were not considered patients, but rather family members. The intimacy of these bonds is what keeps people diagnosed as mentally ill true to his/her individuality. Mentally ill people are not considered outcasts and placed at the outskirts of society. They are still under the branch of ordinary people. However when Baxter showed the desire to build such a foundation in the US, this system was blatantly rejected due to its incompatibility.

It is in our human nature to constantly improve society by finding solutions to events that do not fit the definition of “normality.” This instinct is the same reason to why there is a constant drive to finding solutions than simply accepting a situation, for solution is commonly linked with improvement. Hence, this podcast serves to complicate the general notion of the benefits of solutions by demonstrating the positive impacts of not having a solution. The role of emotion is significant when determining the efficacy of treating mentally ill patients. Thus, this raises the question of to what extent does our limited ability to empathize with others inhibit the treatment of mentally ill patients? Furthermore, how does this podcast change your views on how the values of American society influence the treatment of mentally ill patients? Both these questions are concerned with the role of emotion and perception along with factors that shape this perception. Ultimately, one’s value system and emotion are key to establishing a proper solution for treating mentally ill patients, or accepting the lack of resolution.

Works Cited

Rosin, Hannah. “The Problem with the Solution.” Invisibilia, NPR, 2016.

In the podcast, “The Problem with the Solution,” men’s ways to have tried to solve mental illnesses or any types of problems- were discussed. It is in the human nature to want to give a solution to a certain “problem” that arises. However, concerning the mental illnesses of human beings, it is not possible to create the most healthy solution for each other, for those that have a mental illness. There, a woman who saw the problem in a common solution to treat mental illness, Ellen Baxter, researched to find the solution to the solution of the original problem. She learned that in Geel, Belgium, villagers had a foster care system for mental patients, which the “cure” was to help the patients embrace their mental illnesses and habits that most people wanted to “fix.” This only seemed to have worked for non-family members because the foster families did not care to “fix” their boarders (those who were getting foster care) as much as they would have for their family members. The level of “care” and being able to accept each other’s differences was what helped the patients in Geel find a more stable mental state.
The miracle from Baxter’s experiences, the “cure” of having no solution to one’s mental illness brought a solution and a wonder to why human beings need to feel satisfied only when there is a solution to everything. When Baxter worked out a false diagnosis to live in a mental hospital, there was order, but not a solution or an answer to solve the problems of the patients. In Geel, boarders were welcome “as they were” and they felt much more balanced since they did not drown their systems with medication. This was a better “solution”- not having a solution.
As seen through the podcast and Baxter’s research and her effort to put people together in New York City despite their mental states, providing affordable housing for those who desperately need it, it is clear that mental illnesses should not be a bother to each other if the reasons are selfish to those that were not diagnosed a certain mental illness. The solution should be about making the “diagnosed” better, not to satisfy those that live around them. The “want” to satisfy those that were medically “sane” made the problem bigger and did not give the “insane” the chance to take time for themselves or for their brains and bodies to rest.
The solution to mental illnesses is to stop being “nosy” and to accept and love each other’s differences rather than judging that something is wrong. That is why the bigger issue becomes the fact that there are no solutions to anything because everything can be considered a problem in the human society.

Works Cited:

“The Problem with the Solution.” Audio blog post. Invisibilia. NPR, 1 July 2016.

In 1997, social media was invented to enable people to connect with others on a large, virtual platform. As social media grew overtime; however, it has become a platform to popularize trends, to share opinions on issues, and to publically humiliate its consumers. The evolution of social media shows that societal values have not become more accommodating to all people, instead all the ignorance that has existed in this country for centuries is just easier to express by the click of a button. As easy as it is to express negativity on social media, it is even easier to respond to it because media is frequently used by millions and has become an aspect of everyday life. It becomes worse when several individuals that share similar opinions converge and direct their comments to a specific person. The more people persist to correct the ignorance, they lose sight of the actual problem. Yet, the question still remains: why is so much effort put into destroying people rather than fixing the issue?

Throughout the chapter, “God That Was Awesome,” in Jon Ronson’s book, the reader is given a breakdown of how rapidly one’s life can be ruined by public shaming on social media platforms. In detail, Justice Sacco, a journalist attempted to gain attention by purposely posting an offensive tweet that reads as, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” (Ronson, 68). Although her intent was to be humorous, many did not see it that way. Many found it t to be extremely racist and argued that it was an example of white privilege. The response she received eventually escalated—leading to her being fired from her job. Even after she was fired, she still carried the weight of someone who was ruined on the internet. In other words, her life was denounced down to a negative hashtag. Despite the fact that Justine was ruined, her incident is one of the many examples of the effects public shaming has on an individual.

Reading this chapter evokes the question of why many feel as though public shaming is beneficial. It seems as though having the ability to destroy a total stranger anonymously is powerful due to its broad audience.  Also, it produces this satisfactory feeling one is correcting a contributing factor of the wrongness in society. But will attempting to correct one person change the underlying attitudes and beliefs behind the issue? One side of this argument is that since people care about what others think, they’ll become more apprehensive of what they post. This does not exactly change the underlying attitude, but it alters how people with contradicting beliefs interact with one another. Conversely, one may argue, that public shaming forces someone to carry their guilt forever which gradually causes them to re-evaluate their beliefs, words, and actions. Living with permanent embarrassment ultimately changes the way people perceive certain situations and changes their attitude overall.

Works cited

Ronson, Jon. So you’ve been publicly shamed. Riverhead Books, 2016. 6 October 2017

Desire and obsession are motivational emotions that can lead to both good and bad things. They can lead to lead to more time and effort being spent on a specific topic which leads to a solution that would not have been found otherwise. However, they can also lead to a waste in time, trying to prove something that simply cannot be proven or does not exist. In extreme cases, can one’s desire to believe they are right, and their obsession to be right, lead the human mind to create an alternate reality for that person in which they are right as a coping mechanism?

Within Devils Bait by Leslie Jamison, one is introduced to Morgellons disease. A disease where people feel and can see foreign objects rising up and out of their skin. These objects are claimed to be microscopic and cause intense itching of the skin by the people who suffer from the disease. The itching leads to extreme scarring and disfigurement of the body areas affected. Each diseased person has their own abstract cure for the disease, but no cure for the disease seems to last for long. However, Morgellons disease is not credited as a real disease, but rather an irrational phobia of parasites, by the medical community. This leads to a group of Morgellons patients gathering at a conference where they are not outcast by the people around them, but instead welcomed by other people suffering from the same thing. Each interaction Jamison has with a patient reiterates the idea that the patient feels outcast by society because of their condition and that the things coming out of their skin is reality for them, not a figment of their imagination.

While reading this essay, one questions why each patient is so set on their beliefs if the medical community has already agreed that no such thing is happening to them. Nor, is there outside proof that the disease is anything more than a phobia. Also, the fact that no cases of such a disease are recorded before 2001. Are the patients so obsessed with finding the things under their skin so much so that their minds create it for them? Then begs the question: does the mind do this as a coping mechanism so that one’s desires are fulfilled because the contrary would lead to an endless pursuit of something non-existent?

Works Cited:

Jamison, Leslie. “Devils Bait.” The Empathy Exams 27-56