Philoctetes: Trojan warrior suffering chronic pain and isolation

Philoctetes
www.haverford.edu

Greek Mythology Quiz Question:

Q. What is the name of the mythological hero whom the ancient Greeks took as their role model for dealing with chronic pain?

A. His name is Philoctetes [fil-ahk-tee'-teez] from the eponymous Greek tragedy by Sophocles.

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The following, which you will find at the website of The Philoctetes Project (www.philoctetesproject.org), is the story of Philoctetes.

Philoctetes is a mythological character from the Greek tragedy by Sophocles, a warrior who was on his way to the Trojan War when a serpent bit him.

The smell of his wound was so noxious that he was left on the island of Lemnos and ostracized by his countrymen [for over10 years.—JCH]. When the war started, Cassandra, the seer, said that without the bow of Heracles, which is only possessed by Philoctetes and which he inherited from his father, the war could not be won. Many believe that it's the Trojan Horse that is the key to winning the war, but actually it's the bow of Heracles.

So the Argives have to humbly go back to Philoctetes and ask him to rejoin them. At first he says,

"No. From all the pain that you have given me, even if I could regain my glory, I reject you, even if it's at the cost of my own redemption. Even at the cost of reconstituting my own existence."

Eventually, there is a deus ex machina that comes in to relieve him of the burden of this decision, and so the Argives regain the bow and eventually go on to win the war.(Philoctetes Center Inc. www.philoctetes.org)

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Q. How might the story of Philoctetes prove useful to 20th Century readers suffering from chronic pain?

A. "In The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature* (1941). Edmund Wilson modernizes the story of Philoctetes, tying the wound to psychic trauma and the bow to the healing power of insight. And so the creative personality is the one who uses art as a way of transcending trauma. The artist chooses the road of insight over that of pathology." (Philoctetes Center Inc.)

In symbolic, Wilsonian terms, the theme of the Phyloctetes myth could be stated thus:

The creative personality can transcend psychic trauma by using the healing power of artistic insight.—JCH

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*The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature*, Edmund Wilson (Author), Janet Groth (Contributor). New York:Houghton Mifflin (1941).

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"Phrryus finds
Philoctetes in a Cave"

Artist unknown.
From The Baldwin Project,
"The Long Siege."

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Study claims that viewing art can reduce response to pain

Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci

The article below, 

"In pain? Take one masterpiece, three times a day," 

from the Sept. 20, 2008 edition of New Scientist,

summarizes a recent study that claims

 subjects in pain perceive their pain 

as being a third less intense while 

viewing a beautiful painting.

§

» In pain? Take one masterpiece, three times a day

To investigate, Marina de Tommaso and a team from the University of Bari in Italy asked 12 men and women to pick the 20 paintings they considered most ugly and most beautiful from a selection of 300 works by artists such as da Vinci and Botticelli.

They were then asked to contemplate either the beautiful paintings, or the ugly painting, or a blank panel while the team zapped a short laser pulse at their hand, creating a pricking sensation.

The subjects rated the pain as being a third less intense while they were viewing the beautiful paintings, compared with contemplating the ugly paintings or the blank panel. Electrodes measuring the brain's electrical activity suggested a reduced response to the pain when the subject looked at beautiful paintings (Consciousness and Cognition).

While distractions are known to reduce pain in hospital patients, de Tommaso says this is the first result to show that beauty plays a part. "Hospitals have been designed to be functional, but we think that their aesthetic aspects should be taken into account too," she says.

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Sandro Bottichelli (1445-1510) • La Primavera, Allegory of Spring

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» Just a thought . . . 

Could one not argue that the pleasures derived from viewing fine art are always available at uniquely elevated — in a sense, privileged —levels of enjoyment for viewers who happen to be, at the moment of aesthetic perception,  suffering pain? If yes, might we not term such experiences "privileged pleasures"?—JH

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The 4th of July, 2008, Indoor Picnic.

Pain Pals Gather in the Spring's Parlor.
on the Fourth of July, 2008.

Incommodious smoke from lingering central valley wild fires canceled our outdoor 4th of July celebration at Wildwood Park. But thanks to the generosity of the Springs, who opened their comfortable home to the group for the afternoon, we enjoyed our picnic indoors.

Our generous hostess, with pal Toby.

"Just keep your nose out of the little
window. And your thumb off the lens."

The Three Graces.

"Hey, Toby. Why don't you ask
them to rent you a Lassie movie?
I think you'll like it.
Then there's the Original: Rin Tin Tin.
And — the Best! — Asta, who, I recall,
won an Oscar as Best Supporting Dog
in 'Song of The Thin Man.'
See ya, Tobe. And bow wow."

Meeting Recap for July 16, 2008

Ideas from the writings of Victor Frankl were
central to presentation given by our guest
speaker, Dr. James Stratigakes.

Victor Frankl 1904-1997, Holocaust survivor.

Developer of existential philosophy & logotherapy.
Author of Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.
§
Photo: ideasvida.files.wordpress.com

◊

The meeting for July 16, 2008, comprised two parts:

I: Guest Speaker and Facilitator, James Stratigakes, PhD, Clinical Psychologist (one hour).

Dr. Stratigakes opened his remarks with two quotations from Holocaust survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl.

II: Group Discussion about September, Pain Awareness Month. (45 minutes).

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Part I. Dr. Stratigakes: Presentation (30 minutes)
followed by cross conversation with the group (30 minutes).

Dr. Stratigakes grounded his talk and the cross conversation that followed on two quotations from Holocaust survivor and philosopher Victor Frankl:

/————————————————————————————————\

Between stimulus and response there is a space.

In the space is the power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our Freedom.

Victor Frankl

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his
life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked.
In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only
answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can
only respond by being responsible."

Man's Search for Meaning

\————————————————————————————————/

Dr. Stratigakes then simplified Frankl's ideas to the this conceptual model:

Pain stimulus » Space » Response.

What follows is a summary of Dr. Stratigakes's talk (based upon this writer's notes) with direct quotations from the Doctor inserted where fitting.

Dr. Strategakes gave focus to the Space element of the model by inviting each of us to ask the question, "How can I be in the moment?"

When chronic pain enters our lives — when life "turns on a dime" and everything goes "upside down," when our personal cosmology is challenged and we ask ourselves "Now what?", when we find ourselves in the Space between Stimulus and Response — the Space where, equipped only with "ideas we lived in the past" — we pause and ask ourselves: "How am I going to take responsibility for my life" in these circumstances?

The beginnings of answers to the question, the Doctor suggested, are "to learn to love ourselves," "to learn from life experiences, and "to ask myself "as I walk through my life," "how can I be in the moment?"

Dr. Stratigakes commented that as he has investigated on-line articles about these questions, they clustered into tree categories:

1.) The challenge to "re-frame" one's life
2.) The need to situate ourselves with people who will offer us "support, compassion, and empathy and forgiveness," and
3.) The importance of presenting ourselves with reasonable, specific goals, both short term and long, for dealing with the pain.

He cautioned not "to judge oneself" and not take the idea 'I am less than I was before . . . and because of this disability I am not as whole as I was' and turn it against ouirselves.

As we seek situations that we hope with provide us with help, we should also consider the simple notion of "leaving situations find us."

He returned to the Space concept encouraging us to take a positive idea and "put it into motion" with "the energy that follows thought."

Dr. Stratigakes concluded his remarks after 30 minutes had transpired, devoting the remaining 30 minutes to cross conversation.

At the end of the hour, the group responded with a stout round of applause.

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Part II. Discussion among the members about the imminent arrival of "September, Pain Awareness Month" and activities we might initiate to promote it.

We came to no consensus on what to do or not do (except to say that the County Fair would be, at least this year, beyond our reach). But the conversation prompted some important questions for us to deal with in future meetings:

1.) How much outreach to gain new members should we undertake?
2.) If the membership grows, should we consider having two groups instead of the one we have now, which totals around 25 members?
3.) If we do set up displays at health fairs and other appropriate public settings, how can we assure that volunteers are not taxed beyond personal fatigue limits?
4.) Right now, we do not maintain a group treasury. Should we have one? How will we fill it? Who will fill it? How much money do we need? And for what purposes?

The meeting concluded at approximately 3 p.m.

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Members in Print

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Laurel Gavin and John Horlivy have extended information about chronic pain to the Nevada County community via essays published in The Union.

Laurel Gavin

Part Three of Laurel's continuing series "Living with chronic pain" appeared in The Union on June 13, 2008:

Living With Chronic Pain — Part Three
By Laurel Gavin

When medications, injections and pep talks from family and friends haven't chased away the beast of chronic pain, a plethora of other treatments are available. Chronic pain, defined by the American Chronic Pain Association as that which "continues longer than six months, and is not completely relieved by medication or medical treatment". (Some doctors bring the timeframe down to three months.) For newcomers, these definitions are essential as early medical intervention, diagnosis and treatments can often keep even serious injuries from developing into a lifetime of pain.

Continue reading

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The second part of her series appeared on May 16, 2008 :

Living With Chronic Pain — Part Two
By Laurel Gavin

Last month's article on the subject of how to live with chronic pain defined "chronic" as that which "continues longer than six months, and is not completely relieved by medication or medical treatment," from the American Chronic Pain Association...

Continue reading

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And the first part appeared on April 4, 2008:

Living With Chronic Pain — Part One
By Laurel Gavin

If you are gripping your shoulder, icing your knee for the fifth time today, afraid this ferocious beast has moved in forever, join the one out of three people who live with chronic pain.

Continue reading

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Then, on June 22, 2008,The Union published John Horlivy's response to Part Three of "Living with chronic pain" as a Letter to the Editor titled "Try 'Body Talk' for pain relief."

The letter affirms what John sees as the practical wisdom of Laurel's suggestion that seekers of relief from chronic pain try physical therapy, " even if they did not find it helpful the first time." John comments on the positive effects of Body Talk therapy he has experiences as a client of Tricia Baker of Spring Hill Physical Therapy. Tricia, some of us will recall, visited the support group on March 5, 2008, to explain Body Talk Access and another therapy called Brain Magic.

Try Body Talk for Pain Relief

A Letter to the Editor of The Union
June 22, 2008

By John Horlivy

As a person with no little experience in dealing with chronic pain (12 years of trying virtually every technique available to reduce the pain, but without success), I would like to compliment Laurel Gavin for her thorough commentary on chronic pain treatments in her recent Union article, "Living with chronic pain" (June 13). Her descriptions of the growing number of treatments available for confronting what she calls "the beast" give hope to those of us trying to manage pain.

I agree with her suggestion "that people who have tried physical therapy in the past might wish to go back and try it again, even if they did not find it helpful the first time. Therapists often differ in their approaches and newer techniques are now available."

Continue reading

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"Exfooliate" and 15 other Imaginary Medical Terms

Ex•fool'•i•ate:
A procedure in
which the brain
is cleansed of
dead cells.
From
Bloom's Bouquet
of Imaginary
Words (2004)

Our intention in the posting of April First ('08), "Breaking the Code of Doc Speak," was to inform. We quoted The Union's Senior Writer David Moeller who, in turn, quoted two sources (Medspeak: Language of the ER; and Medilexicon, an online medical dictionary) to inform us about the meanings of various terms of medical jargon, such as NOP, which means nothing by mouth or SOB, which means shortness of breath.

The present posting turns in another direction: it aims simply to entertain. Any inclination to cite academic sources has been sedated by the writer so that he — and, he hopes, the reader — can enjoy the challenge of reckoning newly coined medical terms invented solely by lexicowits to entertain. (As coiner of the word lexicowit, I will make bold to define the term — word wits — and sound out its pronunciation, which is not the expected "lex'-ic-o-wit" but the more playful "lex-ic'-o-wit."

Like Mr. Moeller, I too will be citing a source, Bloom's Bouquet of Imaginary Words (2004) by Jeffrey and Carole Bloom, for examples of medical terms that aim not to realign, file, or fix any bones, but to tickle them.

Among the book's 15 chapters — including such (here abbreviated) titles as Food and Drink, Fashion & Grooming, and Sex — we find on pages 43 through 60 our chapter of interest (here stated in its full form): "Froshbite and frollicles (Medicine)."

A quick injunction, here, dear reader: do not speed read this chapter title. Its key words are "Froshbite" not "Frostbite" and "Frollicles" not "Follicles." As the Blooms demonstrate, by "merely adding, deleting, or changing a single letter, we can significantly expand the meaning of words." (9) Put another way, they are making puns using the minamalist method of single-slot letter (vowel or consonant) replacements.

Thus, to arrive at a new whimsical meaning of froshbite, we drop the t from frost and replace it with an h to arrive at the word frosh, and hence to the conflation froshbite, which suggests a "Freezing college newbie's condition," which, as my imagination sees it, sees a shivering college freshman from Florida in shortsleeves and clogs scampering through an early snow on a college campus in northern New England.

I've decided to share these newly minted terms with you, even though many of them do not apply directly to our malody in common, chronic pain. (I offer malody as an instance of an imaginary word — one I just invented by blending malady with melody which as a single word suggests a sad love song to one's beloved, who is distressed with a serious ailment.

Instead of using the term imaginary words, which was coined by the Blooms, linguists employ traditional jargonic equivalents of their own, namely, blends and portmanteau words. To learn how a portmanteau — a leather European travel case hinged at the top to open into two compartments below, is a useful image to describe how certain English words are created, see "§ Portmanteau Words" at the end of this posting.

Immediately following "The List of 15," I offer a second list, "The List of 15, with Interpretations" presenting my best guesses about the verbal identities of the either obvious or murky pair of standard English words that have been blended to comprise each new Magical Word.

And so we move on, on to "The List of 15," a selection from the Bloom's book of 15 new coinages, some of which, I am certain, you will intuit the intended meaning immediately; the others — the stumpers — may prompt some manner of reckoning with word roots, prefixes, and suffixes to arrive at. I hope you and your prefrontal cortex will have fun discerning the "hidden meaning" of each imaginary word.

» The List of 15

From the chapter titled "Froshbites & Frollicles (Medicine)" in
Bloom's Bouquet of Imaginary Words, Jeffrey and Carole Bloom,
New York: Workman, 2004.

1. Practologist
Doctor who takes a nuts-and-bolts approach to the rectum

2. Pilliterate
A pharmacist unable to read doctors' prescriptions

3. Plumpectomy
Liposuction

4. Pumpernuckle
Repetitive injury from drawing water from a well

5. Clausetrophobia
Fear of making changes in a formal document

6. Cellebration
Moment of conception

7. Nocturinal
A glow-in-the-dark vessel for nighttime use

8. Laxactive
The productive effect of a medicine
designed to relieve constipation

9. Melancholy
Fruit of the Gloom

10. Intrinsick
Fundamentally ill

11. Exfooliate
A procedure in which the brain is cleansed of dead cells

12. Fastigue
The rapid onset of extreme tiredness

13. Waftermath
Blend waft with aftermath.
A lingering odor after a passage of gas

14. Parchmint
Lozenge for a dry throat

15. Banalgesic
A drug acting to relieve boredom

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» The List of 15, with
Interpretations
Estimations of meaning by J.H.

1. Practologist
Blend proctologist with practical.
Doctor who takes a nuts-and-bolts approach to the rectum.

2. Pilliterate
Blend pill with illiterate.
A pharmacist unable to read doctors' prescriptions

3. Plumpectomy
Blend plump with -ectomy —
a combining form that means excision
Liposuction

4. Pumpernuckle
Blend pumper with knuckle.
Repetitive injury from drawing water from a well

5. Clausetrophobia
Blend clause with claustrophobia.
Fear of making changes in a formal document

6. Cellebration
Blend cell with celebration.
Moment of conception

7. Nocturinal
Blend nocturnal with urinal.
A glow-in-the-dark vessel for nighttime use

8. Laxactive
Blend laxative with active
The productive effect of a medicine
designed to relieve constipation

9. Melancholy
Blend melon with melancholy.
Fruit of the Gloom

10. Intrinsick
Blend intrinsic with sick.
Fundamentally ill

11. Exfooliate
Blend exfoliate with fool.
A procedure in which the brain is cleansed of dead cells

12. Fastigue
Blend fast with fatigue.
The rapid onset of extreme tiredness

13. Waftermath
Blend waft with aftermath.
A lingering odor after a passage of gas

14. Parchmint
Blend parch with mint (as in pepermint).
Lozenge for a dry throat

15. Banalgesic
Blend banal with analgesic.
A drug acting to relieve boredom

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§ Portmanteau Words

A portmanteau
www.herbariasoap.com/_assets/images/

photos_misc/photo_portmanteau.jpg

The Blooms invented the informal term imaginary words. Among linguists, however, imaginary words are called blends or portmanteu words. The more accessible term of the two is blends, words made by blending the sounds and meanings of two words into a single word, as in dustination, meaning Where dirt ends up," a blend of dust and destination.

Blends are also known as portmanteau words or portmantologisms, terms derived from the word portmanteau, a traveling case made of stiff leather, hinged to open into two equal parts. A portmanteau word is a bundle made from two words, for example, motel from motor and hotel, and smog from smoke and fog.

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Brain Cake

Chef to Guest:

"Here, Mr. Pate, along with your latte, have a slice of my brain cake. Both will sharpen your wits."

I know that our group's Chef de Cuisine and Master Patissier, has confectioned many a tasty croquembouche ("Crunch in the mouth") in his time, perhaps, even, a Brain Cake or two.

Brain cake? What's Brain Cake?

Observe:

Wikihow.com

A brain cake is nothing more than a pastry shaped into the form of the human brain. The trick among the brainiest of bakers is to create one that is anatomically correct.

On those occasions when you are entertaining neuroanantomists or brain surgeons, it is good to have a recipe for an anatomically correct brain cake on hand.

A good place to go to — actually, the only place I know of — for instructions on how to make such a cake is WikiHow.com,

where you'll find a posting titled "How to Make and Anatomically Correct Brain Cake."
Click here» brain cake.

You'll need a "map" of the human brain to work from:

psyweb.com/Brain/brain001.jsp

To give something of the flavor, so to speak, of the Wikihow recipe, here are the illustrative image and a few descriptive sentences from Step #9, "Work one cortex (area) at a time." Happily, this part of the recipe illustrates in confectionary terms what in neuroscientific terms is called brain plasticity. Note the recipe's playful word choices (in bold print).

Wrinkle, mold, stretch, and otherwise manhandle the rolled fondant




into grey matter, and then use your rounded form to do the final shaping of the cortex.


Use your cut-out pattern as a guide and take your time. You can always mash it back into a ball, add some water and start over.

Consider bringing any leftovers to our next meeting.

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