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http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/10/04/julian-sheather-unrest/
Unrest is the film Jennifer Brea made about her condition. It is not an easy watch. She does not pull her punches. It takes us into the dark folds of a cruelly disabling condition. It is a defiant film though—not least because she makes it in dogged defiance of her condition. And it provokes ceaseless questions.
One that stayed with me is the long squabble between psychological and physical etiology. I get that to treat a condition it helps to know its cause. But what I don’t get is the insinuation—not from the filmmaker, but from some of the commentators—that if it is mental rather than physical, choice is involved. The phrase “it’s all in the mind” suggests that all we need do is change it. Change our mind and the problem dissolves. But such a view of mental phenomena is puerile. Our minds are not sovereign over themselves in these things. And the quicker we ditch that stale and exhausted canard the better.
Unrest also provokes philosophical questions about other minds. Because a devastating condition is not well-captured by current diagnostic possibilities, questions have arisen in the past about its reality. Is this suffering or elaborate malingering?
Julian Sheather, Specialist Adviser, Ethics and Human Rights at the BMA, says the film raises important issues for the medical community.
Quote:
"Unrest is heroic filmmaking. It takes a mysterious, stigmatized and invisible disorder and brings the condition and its sufferers into clear light. It is a tribute to the filmmaker and her extraordinary husband. And also a reminder, if we need it, that the world of human suffering has not been mapped in its entirety by medicine."