Community Forum Archive

The Epilepsy Community Forums are closed, and the information is archived. The content in this section may not be current or apply to all situations. In addition, forum questions and responses include information and content that has been generated by epilepsy community members. This content is not moderated. The information on these pages should not be substituted for medical advice from a healthcare provider. Experiences with epilepsy can vary greatly on an individual basis. Please contact your doctor or medical team if you have any questions about your situation. For more information, learn about epilepsy or visit our resources section.

Culturally Preprogrammed

Tue, 04/06/2010 - 13:06
Topic: Products, Resources, Helpful Links

Roughly 2 weeks ago I was going to reply to someone's posting and include links to some websites for resources about what I was going to say in my reply. When I went to where these resources are located, I noticed a new series of articles have been added. The series of articles is titled "How (and Why) to Tell Others about Your Epilepsy", published in Exceptional Parent magazine in June through October 2009. The one individual, a neuropsychologist, who created these articles had to wait for a certain period of time before he could provide the articles on his own website. While reading through this series of articles there are two words I will probably never forget, which are "Culturally Preprogrammed". Instead of me posting parts and pieces of this series of articles, I'd highly recommend everyone to read this series of articles yourselves.

This neuropsychologist had previously created two other series of articles ( "Beating Bad Seizures" ; "Raising a Kid with Epilepsy" ), also published in Exceptional Parent magazine, and these articles can be located in the S.E.E. Program library, at http://www.theseeprogram.com/html/s_e_e__library.html

For those of you who read these articles I'd like to ask you to please provide some feedback by posting a reply on here, so it can be shared with the neuropsychologist who created all of these articles.

Thank you.

Bruce

Comments

Re: Culturally Preprogrammed

Submitted by Spike. on Wed, 2010-04-07 - 19:14

Bumped back to the top.

Bruce. *I'm not a doctor, but the information I share is what I've learned and experienced due to having epilepsy myself.

Bumped back to the top.

Bruce. *I'm not a doctor, but the information I share is what I've learned and experienced due to having epilepsy myself.

Re: Culturally Preprogrammed

Submitted by 3Hours2Live on Fri, 2010-04-09 - 06:28
Hi Spike, When I read "Culturally Preprogrammed," I thought more in terms of Cultural Anthropology, and, for instance, the practices of the Nacirema of today. My reading of the articles got off to a rough start, as I'm wondering about how the observations were made. When I was placed in the "Epileptics," I conducted the basic experiment of the effect of the word "Epilepsy" on prospective employers. I quickly discovered the mere use of the word on any printed/written paper or form would bring employment cosiderations to an abrupt halt in more than 50% of the cases, while the non-use of the word would continue employment considerations in 100% of the cases (my non-Epilepsy resume/papers/forms most always placed me in the top 5%, where the information was available, and always got a positive response over the test period). After reading a medical journal article comparing the effects of epilepsy on psychological aspects as being of the same broad coverage of aspects of bodily impairments bestowed by syphilis, honesty appears to be a rather foolish blush in any less than total medical situation with medical professionals involving epilepsy. Even on this website, the psychological aspects of epilepsy, and hence social interaction and epilepsy, is a hot-button issue. I believe the Nacirema create the individual, more than the individual creates the Nacirema, and that this is also true with the relationships between the culture and the cultural aspects of epilepsy. With many prejudices, the Nacirema are not always the "good guys" or the "indifferent guys," as it appears to be greatly assumed to be limited to the prejudice of a small number "some people." One point in law that is seldom heard outside the courtroom, is that under Rehabilitation Act (and ADA), statistical evidence is prohibited, and cannot be used as it is used in discrimination cases involving race, creed, color, etc., despite that most medical evidence is based on application of classifications determined by statistical analysis. A large statistical majority is much more than just a small number of "some people." Considering how my academic school performance improved once the public schools lost my "special educational needs" papers, I have many disagreements with the articles. Tadzio

Re: Culturally Preprogrammed

Submitted by Spike. on Tue, 2011-06-14 - 09:53

Bumped back to the top.

Bruce (I'm not a doctor, but instead, an epilepsy support group leader, epilepsy advocate, who has epilepsy.)

Bumped back to the top.

Bruce (I'm not a doctor, but instead, an epilepsy support group leader, epilepsy advocate, who has epilepsy.)

Sign Up for Emails

Stay up to date with the latest epilepsy news, stories from the community, and more.

Subscribe