Fatigue as the unconscious refusal of the demands of late capitalism, 2021, Diserholt

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Dolphin

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Diserholt, A. Fatigue as an unconscious refusal of the demands of late capitalism. Psychoanal Cult Soc (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-021-00240-6

Abstract

This paper explores the function of fatigue in today’s society by drawing on popular culture and interviews conducted as part of a doctoral research study with nine people suffering from chronic fatigue.

With a focus on the ideology of late capitalism, it examines how the emergence of fatigue might be one way of unconsciously refusing the demand for constant activity and presence found therein.

To this end, the paper relies on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, turning around the notions of anorexia (as a refusal of a demand and an embodied disappearance), the drive, desire and mourning — showing how the subject’s refusal emerges on the intersection between the body and the social.

Keywords: fatigue; capitalism; refusal; anorexia; mourning

Free full text:
https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk...e/226666/Blinded Manuscript Version 3 PDF.pdf
 
This paper is almost word salad. I bet an AI could write a better paper about ME.

Actually, I attempted this is GPT-J 6B. In fact, it did. The prompt was "myalgic encephalomyelitis" and the computer wrote the rest. I bolded some phrases where the rhetoric is quote biomedical.
GPT-J said:
Myalgic encephlomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is defined as a severe unexplained complex of illness characterized by chronic fatigue (CF) and various neurological and neuroimmune symptoms that affect a patient’s daily life ([@b1]). Despite the definition and nomenclature of this multisystem illness, there is no single disease that defines the pathophysiology of ME/CFS. Some people do recover, while others do not, but it is a chronic and debilitating disease and affects more than 3 million patients in the US, 1.8 million in Europe, and more than 10 million worldwide ([@b2]). A clear etiology is still not known, but viral and autoimmune (autoinflammatory) mechanisms have been suggested. Since its debut in 1969 ([@b3]), much research has been devoted to elucidating the disease. Although it is difficult to estimate the actual financial burden of this illness in the US because of the lack of information on disability, the total societal cost in terms of direct medical care, and reduced productivity in those with ME/CFS ([@b4]) may be well in excess of \$20 billion per year ([@b5]). This cost is associated with many factors: from the direct medical costs of patients with ME/CFS at the health care system level, to the productivity losses of those with ME/CFS at the individual level. There are approximately 16.5--24.3 million annual US productivity losses associated with ME/CFS, and thus, a total of over \$20 billion ([@b5]). The lack of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) for ME/CFS underscores the need to better understand and target the cause of the disease and to develop an effective treatment. As such, there has been substantial research on etiology, pathology, and clinical studies in the past three decades. However, the lack of effective DMTs has resulted in fewer
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Edit: This was the output from the first run. I didn't cherry-pick anything. I did tell it to write more after seeing the first half.
 
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So I'm not sure how my refusal as a child to engage in the demands of late capitalism then matches with the relatively successful career I had in sales which I then had to give up as my ME got worse. I guess their view would be that in unconsciously denying my unconscious refusal led me to unconsciously ruin my career which was built on the idea of embracing, and benefiting from, the demands of late capitalism.
 
I have just waded through the paper at high speed to get the gist of it. Basically she hasn't a clue what ME/CFS is. She seems to equate fatigue with a desire for sleep and have no clue about PEM which is only vaguely described in order to misintepret it. I think this is an example of why the name Chronic Fatigue Syndrome misleads so many people to equate ME/CFS with tiredness.

The whole thing is, as you say RedFox, word salad, and of the most idiotic, blinkered and insulting variety. She has twisted what the pwME told her to fit her daft theories. i think she has seriously abused the trust of the individuals she interviewed. I think this is a form of patient abuse.

It makes me despair at the state of acadamic study. That on the strength of this prejudiced drivel she gets a PhD and lectureship in psychology is very concerning. She'll be spreading this awful pernicious nastiness to new cohorts of students, probably for the next 40 years.

I don't think she should be allowed to get away with this without academic level challenge. One for Prof. Brian Hughes to tackle perhaps, if anyone is in touch with him. He hasn't been on the forum for quite a while. And @dave30th and @Joan Crawford.
 
Agreed. Skimmed a few pages before I reached the limit of how much I could roll my eyes :). This paper is such garbage it should be retracted. I should dig into the sleep section to see how laughable it is. We all know it's not wanting to sleep. It's sleeping 10 hours and feeling like you slept one. If only I could sleep for *pulls out calculator* 80 hours a day! Then I'd be fine!
 
Andy said:
So I'm not sure how my refusal as a child to engage in the demands of late capitalism then matches with the relatively successful career I had in sales which I then had to give up as my ME got worse. I guess their view would be that in unconsciously denying my unconscious refusal led me to unconsciously ruin my career which was built on the idea of embracing, and benefiting from, the demands of late capitalism.
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My apparent completely repressed childhood trauma somehow caught up with me 12 years into my career after I had been running my own business for 4 years very successfully. I gave up a very successful career I loved to live in poverty because of that darn completely unknown trauma. Its powerful stuff this psychiatrist is pedaling its good they can explain why my brain and body failed me. Shame the CBT didn't manage to help, or the exercise, now I think about it the exercise did really make me a lot worse!
 
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This is a Lacanian exploration ! Which means the work only exists within the terms of Lacan's set of theories about how the world, including the human mind, is. That Diserholt doesn't concern herself with the reality of ME/CFS for patients, nor with medical science is of no consequence for the Lacanian perspective because those are just artifacts to be interpreted. We are talking about Freudian interpretations of illness and illness behaviour matched with er um ... sub Marxist Historic-Dialetic Materialism ???

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan and if you want a really painful exploration: Lacan, psychoanalysis and the left
 
If she'd stayed within the rarefied academic world of Lacanian nonsense I wouldn't be so worried. But she's now teaching psychology students, many of whom will end up as therapists, educational psychologists, teachers etc. It's so irresponsible to let someone so prejudiced spread her nonsense to people who will be in a position of care for sick people. I can only hope her colleagues don't share her views and can counter her influence.
 
Trish said:
If she'd stayed within the rarefied academic world of Lacanian nonsense I wouldn't be so worried. But she's now teaching psychology students, many of whom will end up as therapists, educational psychologists, teachers etc. It's so irresponsible to let someone so prejudiced spread her nonsense to people who will be in a position of care for sick people. I can only hope her colleagues don't share her views and can counter her influence.
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I'm surprised. I remember talking to a friend, who was doing his phd in psychology at Cambridge Uni, about Lacan (I studied Lacan in quite a lot of depth as part of my English Lit studies), he said that Lacan had no place in modern psychology and hadn't done for years. I thought psychology had moved on.
 
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Trish said:
If she'd stayed within the rarefied academic world of Lacanian nonsense I wouldn't be so worried. But she's now teaching psychology students, many of whom will end up as therapists, educational psychologists, teachers etc. It's so irresponsible to let someone so prejudiced spread her nonsense to people who will be in a position of care for sick people. I can only hope her colleagues don't share her views and can counter her influence.
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Diserholt's Linked In page says she lecturing at Strathclyde but her name doesn't come up on the staff lists there, although she has a couple of shared authorships with current staff.

There is this: Lacan in Scotland
 
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