Disease and Illness as Narcissistic Dynamics
Channel: Sam Vaknin's Musings
Date: 2020-05-10

Full text here: http://samvak.tripod.com/disease.html 

Bystanders resent and shun the sick because they make them feel anxious. The ill threaten the healthy person’s sense of security and her much-needed belief in predictability, justice, and rule of natural law. 

The patients, on their part, do not believe that it is possible to effectively communicate to "outsiders" what they have been through. The torture chambers known as hospital wards are "another galaxy". This is how Auschwitz was described by the author K. Zetnik in his testimony in the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961.6

But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The patient wishes to forget the pain, to avoid re-experiencing the often life threatening episodes and eruptions and to shield his human environment from the horrors. In conjunction with the patient’s pervasive distrust, this is frequently interpreted as recalcitrance or hostility.

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