Illness as a psychic state exists primarily as being-for-others

Evidence

At this point a new layer of existence appears: we have surpassed the lived pain toward the suffered illness; now we surpass the illness toward the Disease. The Disease as psychic is of course very different from the disease known and described by the physician; it is a state. There is no question here of bacteria or of lesions in tissue, but of a synthetic form of destruction. This form on principle escapes me; at times it is revealed to the Other by the “twinges” of pain, by the “crises” of my Illness, but the rest of the time it remains out of reach without disappearing. It is then objectively discernible for Others. Others have informed me of it, Others can diagnose it; it is present for Others even though I am not conscious of it. Its true nature is therefore a pure and simple being-for-others. When I am not suffering, I speak of it, I conduct myself with respect to it as with respect to an object which on principle is out of reach, for which others are the depositories. If I have hepatitis, I avoid drinking wine so as not to arouse pains in my liver. But my precise goal—not to arouse pains in my liver—is in no way distinct from that other goal—to obey the prohibitions of the physician who revealed the pain to me. Thus another is responsible for my disease. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 920

Categorization

• XREF: The being-for-others structure of the Disease connects directly to the mirror/body-for-others themes in the pair’s shared project; also foreshadows Beauvoir’s treatment of the body as situation. — connects to: Esoteric logic can invert institutional language into a self-fulfilling illness narrative — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 608; Being-for-others is suffered rather than actively existed; Psychic states are grasped only as shadows projected by reflected-on consciousness (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies the three-layer structure of lived pain, suffered illness, and psychic Disease as being-for-others.

Broader Connections

• Being-for-others is suffered rather than actively existed #corroborates (0.78)
• The situation is constituted from Others’ meanings rather than from being itself #corroborates (0.78) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 444
• Esoteric logic can invert institutional language into a self-fulfilling illness narrative #expands (0.72) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 608
• Psychic states are grasped only as shadows projected by reflected-on consciousness #expands (0.72)