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

Dolphin said:
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/download/51da96ebd72ed68e5cd667a4615df11f24fb7c791c6c7cfc3bcadf82436dd75e/226666/Blinded Manuscript Version 3 PDF.pdf
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Words fail me completely.
Nothing like this ever came close to me in any of my training apart from a few foreys in yey olde theories of yonder past so we could have a laugh

Seriously it's beyond bizarre.

A parody of an academic.

At one point she suggests via hashing that she is a fan of critical psychology. Nope.
 
Trish said:
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.
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It really is beyond words. Made up 'stuff' Post truth waffle. Piffle. Astonishing doesn't quite do it justice :eek:
 
Faced with such fantastical rantings, I too am speechless, although not surprised.
Like most who embrace psychoanalysis as a religion, she listens but doesn't really hear, she's only interested to see her beloved little theory corroborated, no matter if facts, reality, truth are evaded or ignored. As underlined, this " thesis " is only distortion, deformation of what pwme report or do. Grosso modo, she interprets ME as a supposed inner conflict, a pathological ambivalence existing between the unconscious refusal to follow the rhythm of the capitalist system (causing somatization, through fatigue and pain) and this ever-present human need to be recognized despite everything as a whole person in this society. Here is a memorable example, among the innumerable contained in this gibberish:

This is in line with Lacanian subject, someone who wants some but not full recognition as the latter would remove the subject — the subject being partly represented through a symbol behind which it disappears. It is precisely what we see being promoted in the campaign for ME entitled “Millions Missing”: patients demand recognition for their very disappearance from society. They want to be included in society as someone excluded, echoing the anorexic act to ‘include me out!’.
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If it weren't terribly damaging, this kind of inept and dummy intellectualization
would be almost laughable, it's so wacky and without common sense !
 
Lou B Lou said:
Arrogant? Ingrained sense of entitlement? Doesn't like being disagreed with by the lab rats? A hopeless case with no cure in sight?
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I'm thinking about wading into the Twitter debate for the first time in my life. This is what I've drafted so far, but I can't tell anymore a) if my point is clear and/or b) if I'm actually making a point at all!

Does this make sense? suggestions for edits etc are welcome.

"I have a question, I hope it doesn't come across as facetious.
I like to use food poisoning as a comparison case.
I think most people (though I'm sure not everyone) would agree that food poisoning is an illness that happens to a person, that essentially has nothing to do with that that person thinks, feels, believes, or the wider societal organizing framework (whether it's capitalism, or a community deep in the Amazon). Some kind of virus, bacteria or parasite has got into the body, it's stopping things working properly, and in order for the person to be healthy again that virus, bacteria or parasite needs to go. While someone under extreme stress from their environment might be more susceptible to food poisoning (though to be honest I'm not actually sure if that's true), I'd assume we can agree that thinking about how that stress level increases susceptibility is orders of magnitude less useful than understanding the virus/bacteria/parasite that is actually causing the problem.

I (and I think many other people with ME) long for that kind of straight-forward logic to used when dealing with ME. If we can all agree that there are some things (such as food poisoning), where it's much more useful to know what's actually happening, than what might make that thing slightly more likely to happen, then why can't we put ME in that category too?"
 
josepdelafuente said:
I'm thinking about wading into the Twitter debate for the first time in my life. This is what I've drafted so far, but I can't tell anymore a) if my point is clear and/or b) if I'm actually making a point at all!

Does this make sense? suggestions for edits etc are welcome.

"I have a question, I hope it doesn't come across as facetious.
I like to use food poisoning as a comparison case.
I think most people (though I'm sure not everyone) would agree that food poisoning is an illness that happens to a person, that essentially has nothing to do with that that person thinks, feels, believes, or the wider societal organizing framework (whether it's capitalism, or a community deep in the Amazon). Some kind of virus, bacteria or parasite has got into the body, it's stopping things working properly, and in order for the person to be healthy again that virus, bacteria or parasite needs to go. While someone under extreme stress from their environment might be more susceptible to food poisoning (though to be honest I'm not actually sure if that's true), I'd assume we can agree that thinking about how that stress level increases susceptibility is orders of magnitude less useful than understanding the virus/bacteria/parasite that is actually causing the problem.

I (and I think many other people with ME) long for that kind of straight-forward logic to used when dealing with ME. If we can all agree that there are some things (such as food poisoning), where it's much more useful to know what's actually happening, than what might make that thing slightly more likely to happen, then why can't we put ME in that category too?"
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Lacanians may well believe that food poisoning involves a psychological rejection of othered nourishment, provision of food being associated with overbearing maternal assertion, or somesuch. Vomiting and diarrhoea are probably just florid expressions of metaphor.

The thing is, it would be fine if Lacanians wrote mad papers proposing psychological explanations for human ageing, or pregnancy, or food poisoning. The problem comes when they apply postmodernist nonsense to an illness domain which is genuinely contested, one where their academic jeus d’esprit add to a significant corpus of more plausible work which nonetheless still invalidates and denies biophysical reality.
 
I am sorry, but every time I read the title of this paper I get the giggles. "Fatigue as the unconscious refusal of the demands of late capitalism"

Did no one get fatigued during early or middle capitalism? What is capitalism demanding of me? Is my unconscious holding a banner and chanting? No wonder I feel fatigued!
 
ME/CFS Skeptic said:
Strange that this is still being done at universities. Shows that a large part of academic life has little to do with science and knowledge gathering.
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It does seem that at least in some universities people can get a PhD for simply collecting a bit of data, whether as qualititive, ie interviews, or quantitiave, ie questionnaires, apply the analysis tools they've been taught, and write it up along with a review of some literature. It doesn't seem to matter whether that literature and the theories they base their analysis on are complete garbage, such as LP, the stuff this woman is steeped in, or the BPS model of ME/CFS.

So long as they've swallowed the model and can write it up, it gets the degree. They seem to completely miss any stage where they look beyond the model of the world, or disease they've swallowed whole, read more widely or reflect on whether what they write is an accurate reflection of reality.
 
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