Open questions
Ever since I became interested in things psychological, I have heard of open and closed questions. Whether in English-language psychology or Polish psychology, open or open-ended questions are the yardstick of good psychological practice. For a linguist, I’m sorry to say, it’s complete nonsense. Why? Well, in a nutshell, because it doesn’t matter. It’s a fetish.
When does illness begin?
In the late spring of 2009 I was diagnosed with hypertension. This means, according to the current version of the International Classification of Diseases (10th edition) that my blood pressure is (regularly?) above 140/90 mmHg. Regardless of the potential arbitrariness of the diagnostic criterion (the treatment criterion in England is actually different), medicine has been able to set a very clear cut-off point beyond which you have primary hypertension (ICD-10 I10). And so, after investing in a blood pressure monitor, I could actually see for myself whether I was ill. Brilliant. Continue reading “When does illness begin?”
Measure of things
I was following tweets from the #encounteringpain conference and once again I encountered a line with which Rita Charon, the creator of ‘narrative medicine’, suggests consultations could be started. She says:
My strange, foreign name
At a recent conference a presenter was referring to a paper. She read three of the names and then said: “Oh, I can’t pronounce these two.” This sentence, which I probably heard more times than any other sentence referring to my nationality, quite struck me.