Sickness.

I may not agree, these many years later, with some of the points made here, but I have put this here for interest sake. It comes from another perspective, which I held about thirty-five years ago when these notes were used in the preparation for presentations and discussions that occurred at the time.

There is an evil that permeates the world. Alongside the joy and wonder of creation, lies a black horror. Nonbeing, intrinsic to the person, shows itself as death, guilt, meaninglessness and isolation. Every aspect of the person is threatened by these features that are ultimately the boundaries that define him in time and space. Personal existence implies death; self-affirmation, guilt. Living in a world of meanings, the person meets chaos and meaninglessness. As an individual, he is set apart from others, living alone the experience of his life, though he may share it with seemingly countless others. Repeatedly during the course of his life, the person is brought into the presence of nonbeing. Death and the demonic is all about us.

Being and Nonbeing.

The person, as a structural unity of physical and psychological phenomena, undergoes disruptions of various sorts as his finite existence unfolds. Physically there is the possibility of alterations in body functioning that come with tissue damage or abnormal physiologic activity. Accompanying such damage there are varying degrees of discomfort, related to the actual physical changes and their meaning in the life of the particular individual. Such feelings as malaise, pain, weakness and disturbed concentration may follow directly from the particular abnormality. The intensity is modulated, however, by the context in which the illness occurs. The pain, for example, of a war wound is likely to be less intense if it signals a return back home for the soldier. The impact of the illness on the individual depends both on the extent of the disturbance and also on his life circumstances. Depending on what the possible and probable consequences will be, the illness will be associated with a certain amount of anxiety and depression. In any case, whether it results in temporary or more longstanding consequences, whatever the actual physical change, it serves always as a reminder of one’s vulnerability. Sickness, then, even one which superficially appears purely physical, is in the final analysis, a psychophysiological phenomenon affecting the totality of the person as a spiritual being.

Psychological Disturbance.

Psychological disturbances too, involve the totality of the person; even where the problem lies in relationships, conflicts and self-esteem: the meanings, attitudes and wants of an individual, reveal themselves to be psychophysiological events. They are related to genetically and environmentally shaped activity in the central, peripheral and autonomic nervous system as well as the end organs and muscles.

 Sickness, in addition, involves more than particular disruptions in the psychophysiological structure of the person. It has ultimately a spiritual quality; there is sickness because an individual existence is affected. There is in the sickness, the possibility, if not reality of losing that which one loves and of being tied to that which one hates. The distubance may be predominantly physical or psychological; either way, an impact is made on the person’s view of himself and on his life story, altering it in some way and sending reverberations deep into the foundations of his being in the world. With serious illness, the person’s life, loves and hopes are threatened and he finds himself confronted with the anxieties and despair that come with guilt, meaninglessness, isolation and death. At the root of these forms of suffering lies the reality of personal consciousness and will; the person is threatened with loss of some aspect of himself as a creative, experiential being.

The experience of sickness involves suffering which can be understood as a spiritual phenomenon having physical and psychological dimensions. Revealing one’s finitude and threatening nonexistence, the illness is accompanied by anxiety and despair. Anxiety is associated with the possibility of some form of death and it intensifies as what is dreaded, looms nearer. As the possibility becomes an unavoidable reality, the anxiety gives way to despair. Anxiety and despair are phenomena which involve the totality of the person; they are physical events tied to meanings which involve one’s relationship with oneself and the ground of one’s being. These are the feeling states that one becomes when, in sickness, one is brought face to face with nonbeing.

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