Endnote 10: Patients’ Distinctive Language

Abstract

As I wrote in Phase Two of the Magnetic Cure in Aix, Estelle’s ball bursts and, from this moment on the illness declines, just as she had predicted. Each patient with a disorder like Estelle’s uses unique expressions to speak about herself, her pain, and her cure. We often laugh at their diction because the words are funny and unusual. Estelle speaks here of a “ball”—not to be confused with the globus hystericus ^g that so often tires hypochondriacs and patients with nervous disorders. Estelle was not referring to this problem, since she had no abdominal swelling, choking, suffocation, visible lump, or gurgling. She could find no better word to describe this sensation than “my ball.”