RE: Rare Diseases: Koro, Genital Retaction Syndrome
I think that the human race, and we as individuals, is far too complex for our personality and essence to be summed up in a few sentences.
A new study finds psychiatric diagnoses that lump people into groups to be rather unscientific.
He is lectured on anatomy and sexology to try to supplant cultural superstitions with scientific facts, explaining the impossibility of his condition and what he is really suffering. It is also useful to give talks on adequate sexual education in those communities on which there is a case of Koro, to prevent possible epidemics of mass hysteria.
Religion is also sometimes called a mass hysteria. It's interesting that scientists don't think that all superstitious belief should be supplanted with scientific fact, just the ones that bother their possessor.
Thanks for your comment @alexander.alexis, and for sharing that study! Indeed, it's one thing to diagnose a physical illness, after all, our bodies don't differ that much from each other, and even those differences can be observed and quantified. But our mind and conciousness is subjective, and every one is unique. How can we expect to group and classify psychiatric conditions when we cannot quantify the characteristics of thoughts and ideas? Hell, we don't even know how conciousness really works.
And well, I personally kind of share that view on religion. But as with regular diseases, if it doesn't cause harm (normally), there's no problem with just letting it be.
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