How to do things with words Two seminars on the naming of functional (psychogenic, non-epileptic, dissociative, conversion) seizures, 2021,Stone et al

Andy

Andy

Retired committee member
Highlights
  • An interdisciplinary review of patients’ and professionals perceptions of the functions and effects of naming of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.
  • Presents a range of considerations for and against different choices of nomenclature.
  • Arguments for, and a trajectory towards, consensus terminology are provided.
Abstract

Amongst the most important conditions in the differential diagnosis of epilepsy is the one that manifests as paroxysms of altered behaviour, awareness, sensation or sense of bodily control in ways that often resemble epileptic seizures, but without the abnormal excessive or synchronous electrical activity in the brain that defines these. Despite this importance, there remains little agreement – and frequent debate – on what to call this condition, known inter alia as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), dissociative seizures (DS), functional seizures (FS), non-epileptic attack disorder (NEAD), pseudoseizures, conversion disorder with seizures, and by many other labels besides. This choice of terminology is not merely academic – it affects patients’ response to and understanding of their diagnosis, and their ability to navigate health care systems.This paper summarises two recent discussions hosted by the American Epilepsy Society and Functional Neurological Disorders Society on the naming of this condition. These discussions are conceptualised as the initial step of an exploration of whether it might be possible to build consensus for a new diagnostic label.

Paywall, https://www.seizure-journal.com/article/S1059-1311(21)00344-7/fulltext
 
Oh my goodness. Such dedication to this cause. They will just keep going flinging shit at the wall for as long as it takes won’t they?


I favour WDKY or WHDATTY or OKI.

No?
Plenty more where that came from.
 
judging by abstract you have to hand it to them for

- dedication to the cause as @Ash said -- this is a genre
- wall of text
- seeming to refer to jl austen's /how to do things with words/

===

you hereby graduate. i hereby pronounce you man and wife. [these are performatives, uttered typically for their perlocutionary [does something] force of creating the status.] i hereby find you guilty is another, kind of relevant one.

the graduate, man and wife, or criminal do not exist as such before the sentence is uttered. it is the labels that make it so. this is what makes the reference to austen so creepy and so in-character for the perpetrators.

thus, although i have not read the paper and cannot do so, the hint if it is consistent with some perpetrators we have heard seems to be that the label when used makes the actual disease disappear from the universe. thus, more ontological playthings for the perpetrators. alternatively, this is perhaps what they wish it to seem like has occurred.

in malleus, written 1486, being brought before an authority was said to make witches better in some cases.

regardless of whether the above intentions apply, in practice it is all in your head can be a performative when spoken by a doctor.

in practice the label almost passes austen's "hereby" test for performatives: your disease is hereby all in your head. you are henceforth a whole set of bad things lamely, but with inhumanity, associated with said category. you lie, secondary gains, you whine.

in practice, you have become a member of a different caste, a dalit. you get treated as such so you are in practice changed.

but the natural reality of your disease -- the subject matter of the hard sciences -- is not a question of performatives. an actual scientist will use words to clarify instead of confuse and ensure that performatives are nonexistent, or distinguished from natural fact.

for those gathering links: https://www.s4me.info/threads/press...n-old-problem-2021-ventres.22490/#post-376219. the genre seems to continue. which is unnerving in its potential implications, not merely silly.

i have more especially the connection of this to relevant human rights topics like stanton warning signs but can't deal with that at this time.
 
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