Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Healthy or not....?......

I am returning to the issue of health in this post. Health has an objective and subjective component. It may be useful to view a persons attitude. beliefs and behavior regarding health on two levels.
1) Whether it is illness affirming or illness denying ?
2) Whether it done consciously or unconsciously ?
An ill person can deny or affirm that he has illness. If he is unconsciously denying his illness out of fear, it is denial and is not a positive thing. Such persons are not willing to confront the reality and take appropriate remedial action (that is undergoing diagnostic and therapeutic measures). They may resort to alternate treatments or faith healing etc. But sometimes an ill, mentally strong person may deny having illness (partly conscious about the reality) in order to reduce distress to himself and close kin. If he follows appropriate medical advice this may be viewed as a healthy denial. This group has a better prognosis compared to the first according to many studies.
If a healthy person frequently visits health care facility complaining of ill health, one has to explore whether he is doing it with deliberate aim of gaining some reward or privilege. If this is the case it is consciously done. This is called Malingering, This is not a medical or psychiatric disorder. It has to be dealt with appropriate legal, social measures.
More commonly a healthy persons comes with physical symptoms. S/he may be suffering from stress and may have associated anxiety / depression. It is a psychiatric disorder. This category is called Somatofrm Disorder, It has many sub categories. Hysterical conversion mentioned in an earlier post is one such disorder.

1 comment:

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