Self Diagnosis: Who Made You the Doctor?

5 Commentsby   |  11.27.10  |  The Schools of Psychology (Part IV-B)

One thing that always fascinates me is the amount of people that will tell me how many things they have wrong with them at that certain time. Then the same question always comes out of my mouth, “Did you go to the doctor?” I already know the answer to this question before my friend even tries to justify their reason for why they believe that certain illness has taken over their body. That answer is NO.
As a culture, we have seen how subliminal messaging can affect one’s thoughts and unconscious behavior. I believe the same can be seen in someone’s self-diagnosis of themselves or others around them. For example, the new rave is to buy a self-help book, which explains certain illnesses or diseases by stating which symptoms connect to them. Another example is WebMD. This website gives you the definition of illnesses ranging from asthma all the way to illnesses one in a billion people have ever been attacked by. Doctors go to medical school for several years to be able to recognize these illnesses and still have trouble knowing exactly what it is. Why would someone believe that they can diagnose themselves after simply reading an article on the internet or the new hot book?
The newest episode of The Modern Family shows us a taste of this happening in our culture today. YouTube would not allow me to post a clip of this episode, but if you would like to check it out you can at Hulu.com. It’s season two, episode nine. The scene I am focusing on is when Gloria catches Jay and Manny on the WebMD website. She does not believe Jay has anything wrong with him and states, “You think it here, you see it there, you feel it here!” Later in the episode you find out that Jay actually has acute appendicitis, but he went into the hospital because he believed he had another illness that was complete different from the truth. Check it out and let me know what you think!

5 Comments

  1. Morgan Myer
    9:24 am, 11.29.10

    haha I love Modern Family so much. And this is a really relevant topic because I have had so many of my friends so “oh I am so OCD.” or “sorry I have bad ADHD” and 90 percent of the time I ask how long theyve had it for somehow it comes out that they have never been “officially diagnosed” they just “know they have it”. I feel like that diminishes the struggle people that truly have something like ADHD or OCD go through. I think we need to be more aware of not labeling ourselves.

  2. Earl Popp
    12:43 pm, 11.29.10

    Yes, Yes, I think you are on to something! As a society, perhaps we have become irresponsible with the degree of influential stimuli we subject weak and untrained minds to? When I say this, I mean no disrespect to any group as a mind may be thoroughly trained in one respect and completely lacking in another. I would postulate education as a remedy, but unfortunately, education is difficult to regulate and tailor to the recognition of unhelpful thoughts or behavior without consulting a specialist, like a doctor, as you mentioned. But that becomes tedious. The only solution is more public service announcements.

  3. Hannah Hendrix
    12:57 pm, 11.29.10

    Also love Modern Family, and loved the episode you referenced here. Your observation here is absolutely correct. It doesn’t help that we as a culture are constantly being bombarded by ads and other mediums telling us that we could have this, that, or the other. We are often so quick to jump to conclusions with the things that we think may plague us, and yet equally as often ignore the things that turn out to be major problems, as is the case in the Modern Family episode with Jay. I also completely agree with what Morgan said. The more we throw around terms like ADHD or OCD or whatever, the more it minimizes the struggles that those who actually suffer from those disorder. I personally used to joke around with OCD related humor all of the time, until one of my cousins was diagnosed with it. Those jokes or observations became much less humorous once I saw how Greyson really struggled with it and the burden that it was on their family.

  4. Megan Novelli
    3:21 pm, 11.29.10

    I deem that people are ridiculous in the sense that they believe they are able or even qualified to diagnose themselves also think that people nowadays have developed a high sense of hypochondriasis and sites like webMD only further their sense of hypochondriacism. Even if the person has a serious illness, they could easily self diagnose it completely wrong and end up dead or seriously impaired, when they could’ve easily gone to the doctor and been properly diagnosed.

  5. Austin Fontaine
    6:31 am, 11.30.10

    In the defense of the individuals, no doctor can ever know a patient as well as they can know themselves with some good, sane introspection. With that said, I completely agree; Pseudo- hypochondriasis has become a fad that everyone seems to think makes them seem more intelligent because it is something that doctors spend so long trainng to be able to do. Not only that, but they feel that they have a personal interest in figuring out what is wrong with them. Just as in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, all of us fat, spoiled americans have time to think about why our lives are not exactly perfect, but we don’t want to blame anything we have doen ourselves, so we look to our uncontrollable psychosis for a scapegoat. The soft sciences are an easy venue to BS your way through if you know a little jargon, some basic reasoning, and are talking to unqualified laymen.

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