Monday 30 June 2014

Science lets us down once again



My Doctor is everything that you expect from a Doctor, she is careful, caring and spends an enormous amount of time with each patient, highly annoying if you’re waiting to see her.
 But as most Doctors her usual line of intervention with any physical ailment is stating as she hands you the latest medication “take one of these a day and if you’re not better in 15 days come back and see me”. All this without even blushing, which leads me to reflect on what we know about illness and how we know it.

My father is recently suffering from a neurological disorder that sends him into small seizures when ever he gets excited by anything. He has had several scans and all types of tests which show no structural or functional alterations in his central nervous system. He does also have small strokes, but these seem to be apart and do not explain why he will spontaneously launch into an involuntary shaking fit.

Now science, and specifically medicine needs order to maintain its objectivity and a scientific quantitative approach is not providing answers to my fathers’ very subjective and qualitative disorder. Medicine is failing to give importance to the psychosocial relationship, that is the functional relationship my father has with his environment. After all living is simply the contact between ourselves and the outside world and how we make sense of that.

But while he struggles to relocate the way he experiences his life, science blunders blindly on repeating the same test over and over again in a futile attempt at self justification (I’m talking here on a more theoretical level and by no means disrespecting the wonderful work of the Doctors that actually attend to my father)

Right now my father is making meaning out of his experience and not all is helpful I fear, because to think is to think about something and as Gestalt therapists would say his “illness” has become a new figure in his attention spotlight.

My father also comes from a generation that traditionally gives great respect to the natural sciences and so of course this inability to provide him with an answer is even more confusing for him. I repeat my upmost respect for the professionals who have treated him, but would it be too much to ask that after recognising the fact that science is failing to give an answer, that he receives the attention of a psychotherapist. Not just a brief intervention of 6 sessions recommended by the NHS, but with someone who is not emotionally involved and with whom he could build a meaningful relation.

Todo por una cara tan bonita



Seamos realistas, hacer un esfuerzo en realidad es un poco coñazo. En mi caso estuve iluminado después de un episodio de Gandía Shore, un programa donde los candidatos disfuncionales, tipo gran hermano a lo bestia se sueltan en la sociedad y el caos resultante, los insultos y los encuentros sexuales espontáneos, están grabados por un equipo técnico siempre presente. Fama, o más bien la infamia por nada.



 



Al final del día, ¿quien no quiere escaquearse? Vivimos en una época en la que exigimos perfección sin esfuerzo. Queremos que nuestras guerras sean virtuales sin víctimas ni conflictos, queremos  tareas sin esfuerzos, los servicios públicos sin impuestos, la unidad sin lealtad, los derechos sin responsabilidades, fama sin talento, ropa deportiva sin los deportes, el sexo sin el esfuerzo que supone una relación.



 



Esto no se limita sólo al reino de los plebeyos, nosotros la gente mortal. En este momento, España parece tener  políticos sin política, una política de empleo sin empleo y bolsas de trabajo sin trabajo. A medida que Europa se une en la cumbre europea de empleo para tratar de encontrar una manera de hacer frente a su amenaza más grande, la del desempleo masivo. La ministra española de Interior, Fátima Báñez decidió que realmente no valía la pena ir en representación de... Un poco extraño si tenemos en cuenta que España es el país de Europa con los niveles de desempleo más alto, se podría haber pensado que habría sido de interés para la ministra. Pues no, aparentemente no.



                                                           



Esta falta de interés es sin duda un reflejo de las sociedades modernas del mercado. Sería injusto afirmar que España es única en este tipo de desinterés general por el empleo y la búsqueda de una alternativa. Recientemente, un profesor universitario francés se enorgullecía de cómo se enseña literatura sin haber leído ninguno de los libros con los que impartía su asignatura. Pero probablemente lo más alarmante es el hecho de que en Gran Bretaña, McDonalds  actualmente está reconocida como entidad formadora oficial en las Ciencias Empresariales.  ¡Eso si es horrible!