{"id":3977,"date":"2024-02-11T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/?p=3977"},"modified":"2023-03-28T08:22:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T08:22:16","slug":"morbus-feivel-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/11\/3977\/","title":{"rendered":"Morbus Feivel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The city of Chelm once became the breeding ground for a strange epidemic, and this is how it happened. So many people in the city were falling ill that Doctor Feivel thought to himself how much quicker and easier it would be to stop examining the city\u2019s residents to find out what illness they were suffering from, and instead to find out who had been infected by health and what kind of health it was. He diagnosed healthy bones in a patient who had no broken legs, a healthy heart in another patient, a severe case of healthy skin in a third and so on. When Schlemihl came to see him, he diagnosed uninflamed health of the gums. When Schlemihl asked him what he meant, the doctor \u2013 who had already started examining his next patient \u2013 muttered, \u201cMorbus Feivel, advanced stage of severity.\u201d Schlemihl did not really understand what he meant, but did not wish to admit his ignorance and so did not query the diagnosis. When he arrived home and his wife asked him what the doctor had said, he answered curtly, \u201cInfectious health.\u201d Schlemihl\u2019s wife wondered how it could be possible that she and the children still had a cold when they lived in such close quarters with Schlemihl. When she asked Doctor Feivel, he explained, \u201cIt\u2019s because of the incubation time. The proper symptoms only appear a few days after transmission of an infection of this kind.\u201d And by the next day Schlemihl\u2019s wife and children were indeed feeling much better. \u201cWe\u2019re suffering from infectious health,\u201d they explained to their neighbours. \u201cWe caught it from Schlemihl.\u201d The neighbours were also infected with health over the next few days, and soon Morbus Feivel had spread like wildfire throughout the entire city. Before long the residents of surrounding villages came to infect themselves with Schlemihl\u2019s epidemic, and eventually the entire country was infected with it \u2013 at any rate according to Schlemihl\u2019s version of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
https:\/\/pixabay.com\/de\/photos\/epidemic-2019-mit-ncov-vorlagen-4931319\/ (28.3.2023)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In my experience, anyone who regularly makes the apparently nonsensical claim that he or she is suffering from infectious health, as described in the story \u201cMorbus Feivel\u201d, is more likely to remain healthy during an outbreak of infectious disease. At the same time, some people appear to respond to the warning, \u201cWatch out! I\u2019m suffering from infectious health!\u201d by recovering more rapidly from an illness. The story is based on a Polish-Jewish narrative tradition popularised by Isaak Bashevis Singer. (Singer, 1968. The idea of infectious health also appears in Hammel, 2012b, 51.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(From: Stefan Hammel: Handbook of Therapeutic Storytelling. Sories and Metaphors in Psychotherapy, Child and Family Therapy, Medical Treatment, Coaching and Supervision<\/a>, Routledge 2019)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The city of Chelm once became the breeding ground for a strange epidemic, and this is how it happened. So many people in the city were falling ill that Doctor Feivel thought to himself how much quicker and easier it … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3979,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3977\/revisions\/3979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanhammel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}