and psychological (“mind-based” approaches is commonplace, anthropological, and social studies of bodily appearance and its modifications have been neglected in neuroscience accounts. A social neuroscience view of xenomelia respects the interactions between an individual’s perception of the own body in relation to others’ bodies and as influenced by normative standards. It will also explore the neural correlates of these interactions and investigate, for instance, the constraints of empathy by social norms, or the impact of a person’s preconceptions of a “handicapped body” on brain function and structure.)
Sounds horrible, doesn't it.
My first thought is that she needs more attention than she was getting (and being blind brings attention to the person- who do need more attention/care than people with sight). What she did to herself (with the help of a unethical, IMO, psychologist) is bringing a lot of attention to her life now thru the news (maybe she'll even write a book??) and Dr Phil just swooped in, as he does, to grab some attention for himself and for her on TV. I don't know and as my "theory" may be wrong- off to research.
Working down the wormhole, this is what I found:
Body integrity identity disorder
"...It is not medically recognized by the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5. BIID is related to xenomelia, "the oppressive[clarification needed] feeling that one or more limbs of one's body do not belong to one's self".[6]..
Sufferers of BIID are uncomfortable with a part of their body, such as a limb, and feel confident that removing or disabling this part of their body will relieve their discomfort. Sufferers may have intense feelings of envy toward amputees. They may pretend that they are an amputee, both in public and in private. Sufferers experience the above symptoms as being strange and unnatural. They may try to injure themselves to require the amputation of that limb...
(is this envy for the attention that the amputee receives or just because the amputee is living the life that they themselves wants???)
A sexual motivation for being or looking like an amputee is called apotemnophilia..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_identity_disorder
--
Stumped? A beginners guide to xenomelia and body integrity and identity disorder
"...A recent paper by Dr. Leoni Hiltie and her colleagues in the journal Brain, also reported a similar related condition that they call xenomelia that is defined as the oppressive feeling that one or more limbs of ones body do not belong to ones self. In yet another paper in a 2012 issue of American Behavioral Scientist, Dr. Jenny Davis refers to such individuals as being born incorrectly-able bodied and thus defines the condition as transableism...
Some psychologists, such as Dr. Robert Bruno (writing in a 1997 issue of the Journal of Sexuality and Disability, argue that those wanting to amputate a healthy limb are suffering from a Factitious Disability Disorder (FDD) and is akin to Munchausens Syndrome.
FDDs are conditions in which disability real or pretended provide an opportunity for the sufferer to be loved and attended to where no such opportunity has otherwise existed. The commonality between both conditions is they engage in the behaviour for the sake of being a patient (to receive the care and attention that would otherwise not be obtainable). Bruno argues that those with BIID need only one albeit very extreme medical intervention that leaves them with a lasting and obvious stigma of disability that they believe will permanently satisfy their need for love and attention.
However, other authors (such as Jenny Davis) point out that many such individuals simply believe they were born with an incorrectly-able body and that the desire for amputation has little to do with wanting to be a patient but want to have a healthy limb amputated just to feel normal and complete..."
https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.c...lia-and-body-integrity-and-identity-disorder/
----
More indepth-
Xenomelia: A Social Neuroscience View of Altered Bodily Self-Consciousness
"...philosophers and scientists agree that knowledge about how the brain processes bodily sensations and plans executive action is key to the understanding of the experience of being a conscious self (Blanke and Metzinger, 2009). However, an individuals bodily self-consciousness is not fully predefined by genes and neural circuits. It is constantly compared with others relationships to their bodies and evaluated against cultural norms about bodily appearance. In this article we will review work on xenomelia, one variant of the normal relationships between body and self, that is the desire of a healthy individual to have a fully functional limb amputated. We propose a social neuroscience of xenomelia that unifies neurological, psychological, and sociological approaches to bodily self-consciousness.."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634160/
(A view of xenomelia research that integrates three approaches. While the crosstalk between neurological (brain-based) and psychological (mind-based) approaches is commonplace, anthropological, and social studies of bodily appearance and its modifications have been neglected in neuroscience accounts. A social neuroscience view of xenomelia respects the interactions between an individuals perception of the own body in relation to others bodies and as influenced by normative standards. It will also explore the neural correlates of these interactions and investigate, for instance, the constraints of empathy by social norms, or the impact of a persons preconceptions of a handicapped body on brain function and structure.)
----------------
Apotemnophilia
"Apotemnophilia (or "stump play") is sexual arousal based on the image or fantasy of one's self as an amputee.."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotemnophilia
----
Transableism
"Transableism is a term that refers to the desire to acquire a disability through choice rather than happenstance. This move may be as a re-alignment of their physical body with their perceived identity, or as a form of body modification for aesthetic or other reasons. The former has been medicalised through the construction of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) while the latter may still remain outside of the medical sphere.
To date, there is a very limited academic literature on the phenomenon of transableism...
http://wp.stu.ca/narrativestudies/research/transableism/
--
Translating Transableism: when being able-bodied becomes a disability
"...hey are known by a variety of names, not all of which mean exactly the same thing; Pretenders, Wannabes, transableists and, in medical parlance, sufferers of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID. What unites them is their intense need to acquire a disability, and the difficulty that can cause to their able-bodied lives. Apart from these similarities though, they are as diverse a group of people as you could expect to find. They come from all walks of life, from social workers to lawyers, homemakers to students, and many different nationalities. No-one really understands why they feel the way they do, and no-one really knows exactly how many people are affected. Sometimes there are feelings of sexual desire towards people with disabilities that pre-empt the condition, but for most it is a case of their internal body image not matching their physical bodies. Many parallels are drawn with transgenderism, and the idea of feeling that they were born into the wrong body; only in this case, it is not the whole body that is at odds, just one part...
People with BIID didn't choose to have it any more than somebody chooses to be bipolar, or have MS. It is a faulty wiring in the brain, a neurological, not psychological, disorder, and I have no control over it."
There is currently research being done in the United States that supports this theory. Dr Ryan believes that a group of neuro-scientists in California may have found an answer in the brain scans of patients.
"There is certainly some early evidence that points in that direction... They found a small area of their brain doesn't work normally.".."
http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2011/10/27/3349293.htm
----------------
So many things to consider and still no concrete answers from researching- very complicated, IMO.
A few opinions:
What A Disabled Person Thinks About Transableism
"...People who want so badly to be disabled are obviously mentally ill. If the transabled were taking razors to their arms (oops, trigger warning), or if their ideations were about suicide rather than physical debilitation, there would be no question that they require immediate mental health care. The idea that we would view transableism as anything but a mental disorder is alarming, unsettling, and wrong...
Transableism Makes Unfair Demands on Society
Third, you do not have a right to impose your illness on society. There is a basic concept familiar to anyone who goes through Political Science or Philosophy 101 known as the Harm Principle. The gist is that society shouldnt stop you from doing what you please unless it harms others. While one could argue that the transabled arent harming anyone but themselves, the very act of deliberately imposing themselves on society is in fact the harm..."
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/08/what-a-disabled-person-thinks-about-transableism/
The Woman Who Chose To Go Blind (And Why We Shouldnt Hate Her)
"Entertaining the idea of deliberately disabling myself makes me shudder, and my first reaction to this story was anger. Being blind is hard enough without sighted people actively choosing the lifestyle. Further, what will sighted people think of us? The blind community suffers from ambassadorship syndrome, even if we try to combat that instinct, and I wondered what implications Jewels actions might mean for the rest of us? Its very difficult to give people the right idea about what blindness is like, and viral anomalies like this one further distort the picture.
Of course, sensational news can lead one down many paths, some of them a bit ridiculous. I began imagining what would happen if more and more people did this sort of thing. Would people lose respect and compassion for disabled people in general? Would everyone I meet become suspicious, wondering whether I was a real blind person or just someone who poured drain cleaner in her eyes on purpose? Would we need to undergo rigorous testing to make sure were not voluntarily disabled during screening for benefits, accommodations, and other special services? I eventually managed to derail the hysteria in my head, which left me with the hefty question: how should I feel about Jewel?..
Then there is the very thorny (and legitimate) issue of accommodation: should someone who has deliberately disabled themselves be entitled to benefits, workplace accommodations, assistive technology grants and so on? Should someone who has purposefully blinded herself receive help for a disability she actually chose and embraced?..."
https://wheresyourdog.wordpress.com/tag/jewel-shuping/
And how about a view from NG?? :facepalm:
]Nancy Grace unleashes on shrink for purposely blinding patient (clip)
http://www.hlntv.com/shows/nancy-gr...es-on-psychologist-for-blinding-jewel-shuping
An indepth "opinion"
Transableism, disability and paternalism in public health ethics: Taxonomies, identity disorders and persistent unexplained physical symptoms
"...We suggest that transableism represents a useful construct which may contribute towards resolution of ongoing difficulties within public health ethics and theories of disability. In addition, we believe that it holds promise for the understanding of a significant proportion of patients presenting PUPS. We focus upon identity disorders, particularly in relation to what is currently termed Body Integrity Identity Disorder (henceforth, BIID), where sufferers report a subjective conviction that one or more of their limbs are superfluous, requesting medical assistance to remove the offending limb, repair the results of attempts at their self-removal or to provide prostheses and other assistance after removal. We have considered BIID elsewhere in relation to consent, capacity and the doctor/patient relationship (Mackenzie and Cox, 2005). One of us has also explored how the definition of addiction as a chronic relapsing disease within public health governance enables cycles of transitions between the rigours of rational liberal citizenship and the shriven status of the sick (Mackenzie, 2006). Since a central aim in this piece is evaluate the place of transableism within public health ethics, we will begin by considering the latter as a discursive context for the arguments which follow...
Transableism represents a nexus for these concerns. Public health promotion campaigns which seek to persuade us to eschew excessive indulgence in pleasures which may result in ill health have generally failed to persuade us to do so. In part, this is caused by a general response of healthy scepticism. Many of us fail to be convinced that our lifestyle choices are seriously harmful, nor that their possible health consequences should affect our entitlement to healthcare subsequently. Yet where the harm and the consequences are unequivocal, and result from autonomous choice, many agree that ideas of desert colour the usual assumption that healthcare should be provided according to need.."
http://www.researchgate.net/publica..._and_persistent_unexplained_physical_symptoms
:lookingitup:
:blah::blah::blah:
So- I'm more :scared: than before my research, but I did have a thoroughly interesting afternoon- 3 hours or so- reading about this ......"condition/disorder", if you will, so thanks for posting Gigi and Neesaki.
I'm familiar with factitious disorder, body dysmorphic disorder, and Munchhausen's but this one sounds like a whole new animal, lol. Although it's really not funny, it's tragic.
Sounds horrible, doesn't it.
My first thought is that she needs more attention than she was getting (and being blind brings attention to the person- who do need more attention/care than people with sight). What she did to herself (with the help of a unethical, IMO, psychologist) is bringing a lot of attention to her life now thru the news (maybe she'll even write a book??) and Dr Phil just swooped in, as he does, to grab some attention for himself and for her on TV. I don't know and as my "theory" may be wrong- off to research.
Working down the wormhole, this is what I found:
Body integrity identity disorder
"...It is not medically recognized by the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5. BIID is related to xenomelia, "the oppressive[clarification needed] feeling that one or more limbs of one's body do not belong to one's self".[6]..
Sufferers of BIID are uncomfortable with a part of their body, such as a limb, and feel confident that removing or disabling this part of their body will relieve their discomfort. Sufferers may have intense feelings of envy toward amputees. They may pretend that they are an amputee, both in public and in private. Sufferers experience the above symptoms as being strange and unnatural. They may try to injure themselves to require the amputation of that limb...
(is this envy for the attention that the amputee receives or just because the amputee is living the life that they themselves wants???)
A sexual motivation for being or looking like an amputee is called apotemnophilia..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_identity_disorder
--
Stumped? A beginner’s guide to xenomelia and body integrity and identity disorder
"...A recent paper by Dr. Leoni Hiltie and her colleagues in the journal Brain, also reported a similar related condition that they call ‘xenomelia’ that is defined as “the oppressive feeling that one or more limbs of one’s body do not belong to one’s self”. In yet another paper in a 2012 issue of American Behavioral Scientist, Dr. Jenny Davis refers to such individuals as being born ‘incorrectly-able bodied’ and thus defines the condition as ‘transableism’...
Some psychologists, such as Dr. Robert Bruno (writing in a 1997 issue of the Journal of Sexuality and Disability, argue that those wanting to amputate a healthy limb are suffering from a Factitious Disability Disorder (FDD) and is akin to Munchausen’s Syndrome.
FDDs are conditions in which disability – real or pretended – provide an opportunity for the sufferer to be loved and attended to where no such opportunity has otherwise existed. The commonality between both conditions is they engage in the behaviour “for the sake of being a patient” (to receive the care and attention that would otherwise not be obtainable). Bruno argues that those with BIID need only one – albeit very extreme – medical intervention that leaves them with a lasting and obvious stigma of disability that they believe will permanently satisfy their need for love and attention.
However, other authors (such as Jenny Davis) point out that many such individuals simply believe they were born with an incorrectly-able body and that the desire for amputation has little to do with wanting to be a patient but want to have a healthy limb amputated just to feel normal and complete..."
https://drmarkgriffiths.wordpress.c...lia-and-body-integrity-and-identity-disorder/
----
More indepth-
Xenomelia: A Social Neuroscience View of Altered Bodily Self-Consciousness
"...philosophers and scientists agree that knowledge about how the brain processes bodily sensations and plans executive action is key to the understanding of the experience of being a conscious self (Blanke and Metzinger, 2009). However, an individual’s bodily self-consciousness is not fully predefined by genes and neural circuits. It is constantly compared with others’ relationships to their bodies and evaluated against cultural norms about bodily appearance. In this article we will review work on xenomelia, one variant of the normal relationships between body and self, that is the desire of a healthy individual to have a fully functional limb amputated. We propose a social neuroscience of xenomelia that unifies neurological, psychological, and sociological approaches to bodily self-consciousness.."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634160/
(A view of xenomelia research that integrates three approaches. While the crosstalk between neurological (“brain-based”
----------------
Apotemnophilia
"Apotemnophilia (or "stump play") is sexual arousal based on the image or fantasy of one's self as an amputee.."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotemnophilia
----
Transableism
"Transableism is a term that refers to the desire to acquire a disability through choice rather than happenstance. This move may be as a re-alignment of their physical body with their perceived identity, or as a form of body modification for aesthetic or other reasons. The former has been medicalised through the construction of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) while the latter may still remain outside of the medical sphere.
To date, there is a very limited academic literature on the phenomenon of transableism...
http://wp.stu.ca/narrativestudies/research/transableism/
--
Translating Transableism: when being able-bodied becomes a disability
"...hey are known by a variety of names, not all of which mean exactly the same thing; Pretenders, Wannabes, transableists and, in medical parlance, sufferers of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID. What unites them is their intense need to acquire a disability, and the difficulty that can cause to their able-bodied lives. Apart from these similarities though, they are as diverse a group of people as you could expect to find. They come from all walks of life, from social workers to lawyers, homemakers to students, and many different nationalities. No-one really understands why they feel the way they do, and no-one really knows exactly how many people are affected. Sometimes there are feelings of sexual desire towards people with disabilities that pre-empt the condition, but for most it is a case of their internal body image not matching their physical bodies. Many parallels are drawn with transgenderism, and the idea of feeling that they were born into the wrong body; only in this case, it is not the whole body that is at odds, just one part...
People with BIID didn't choose to have it any more than somebody chooses to be bipolar, or have MS. It is a faulty wiring in the brain, a neurological, not psychological, disorder, and I have no control over it."
There is currently research being done in the United States that supports this theory. Dr Ryan believes that a group of neuro-scientists in California may have found an answer in the brain scans of patients.
"There is certainly some early evidence that points in that direction... They found a small area of their brain doesn't work normally.".."
http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2011/10/27/3349293.htm
----------------
So many things to consider and still no concrete answers from researching- very complicated, IMO.
A few opinions:
What A Disabled Person Thinks About ‘Transableism’
"...People who want so badly to be disabled are obviously mentally ill. If the “transabled” were taking razors to their arms (oops, trigger warning), or if their ideations were about suicide rather than physical debilitation, there would be no question that they require immediate mental health care. The idea that we would view “transableism” as anything but a mental disorder is alarming, unsettling, and wrong...
Transableism Makes Unfair Demands on Society
Third, you do not have a right to impose your illness on society. There is a basic concept familiar to anyone who goes through Political Science or Philosophy 101 known as the Harm Principle. The gist is that society shouldn’t stop you from doing what you please unless it harms others. While one could argue that the “transabled” aren’t harming anyone but themselves, the very act of deliberately imposing themselves on society is in fact the harm..."
http://thefederalist.com/2015/06/08/what-a-disabled-person-thinks-about-transableism/
The Woman Who Chose To Go Blind (And Why We Shouldn’t Hate Her)
"Entertaining the idea of deliberately disabling myself makes me shudder, and my first reaction to this story was anger. Being blind is hard enough without sighted people actively choosing the “lifestyle”. Further, what will sighted people think of us? The blind community suffers from ambassadorship syndrome, even if we try to combat that instinct, and I wondered what implications Jewel’s actions might mean for the rest of us? It’s very difficult to give people the right idea about what blindness is like, and viral anomalies like this one further distort the picture.
Of course, sensational news can lead one down many paths, some of them a bit ridiculous. I began imagining what would happen if more and more people did this sort of thing. Would people lose respect and compassion for disabled people in general? Would everyone I meet become suspicious, wondering whether I was a “real” blind person or just someone who poured drain cleaner in her eyes on purpose? Would we need to undergo rigorous testing to make sure we’re not voluntarily disabled during screening for benefits, accommodations, and other special services? I eventually managed to derail the hysteria in my head, which left me with the hefty question: how should I feel about Jewel?..
Then there is the very thorny (and legitimate) issue of accommodation: should someone who has deliberately disabled themselves be entitled to benefits, workplace accommodations, assistive technology grants and so on? Should someone who has purposefully blinded herself receive help for a disability she actually chose and embraced?..."
https://wheresyourdog.wordpress.com/tag/jewel-shuping/
And how about a view from NG?? :facepalm:
]Nancy Grace unleashes on shrink for purposely blinding patient (clip)
http://www.hlntv.com/shows/nancy-gr...es-on-psychologist-for-blinding-jewel-shuping
An indepth "opinion"
Transableism, disability and paternalism in public health ethics: Taxonomies, identity disorders and persistent unexplained physical symptoms
"...We suggest that transableism represents a useful construct which may contribute towards resolution of ongoing difficulties within public health ethics and theories of disability. In addition, we believe that it holds promise for the understanding of a significant proportion of patients presenting PUPS. We focus upon identity disorders, particularly in relation to what is currently termed Body Integrity Identity Disorder (henceforth, BIID), where sufferers report a subjective conviction that one or more of their limbs are superfluous, requesting medical assistance to remove the offending limb, repair the results of attempts at their self-removal or to provide prostheses and other assistance after removal. We have considered BIID elsewhere in relation to consent, capacity and the doctor/patient relationship (Mackenzie and Cox, 2005). One of us has also explored how the definition of addiction as a chronic relapsing disease within public health governance enables cycles of transitions between the rigours of rational liberal citizenship and the shriven status of the sick (Mackenzie, 2006). Since a central aim in this piece is evaluate the place of transableism within public health ethics, we will begin by considering the latter as a discursive context for the arguments which follow...
Transableism represents a nexus for these concerns. Public health promotion campaigns which seek to persuade us to eschew excessive indulgence in pleasures which may result in ill health have generally failed to persuade us to do so. In part, this is caused by a general response of healthy scepticism. Many of us fail to be convinced that our lifestyle choices are seriously harmful, nor that their possible health consequences should affect our entitlement to healthcare subsequently. Yet where the harm and the consequences are unequivocal, and result from autonomous choice, many agree that ideas of desert colour the usual assumption that healthcare should be provided according to need.."
http://www.researchgate.net/publica..._and_persistent_unexplained_physical_symptoms
:lookingitup:
:blah::blah::blah:
So- I'm more :scared: than before my research, but I did have a thoroughly interesting afternoon- 3 hours or so- reading about this ......"condition/disorder", if you will, so thanks for posting Gigi and Neesaki.
kay: )
