We have a desire to discover and create order, and our constitution, including our rational faculties, indicates that we are predisposed for such productivity. This affinity for order and the establishment of order is fundamental to humans and naturally also leaves its mark on the medical discipline. When this profession is made subject to criticism, frequently in terms of well-used reproofs such as reductionism, reification and de-humanisation, this systematising productivity is invariably involved in some way or other. It is, however, (...) problematic that we rarely delve deeper and ask what order means, or reflect on its underlying, omnipresent and self-evident role. In order to approach this challenge, we initially and briefly place order in a conceptual and historical context. In what follows, we examine order explicitly, i.e. made an object of study, by taking a closer look at extensive multidisciplinary efforts to uncover the secrets of all its facets. Here we also try to identify some systems of order in medical science, including methodological and procedural order, which are indispensable as well as a source of problems. In the sections that follow, order is not defined as an explicit object of study, but comes to light in some exploratory and philosophising projects based on physics, mathematics and phenomenology. Each of these lets order and that which is ordered emerge in ways that may also shed light on opportunities and paradoxes in the medical domain. Key themes here include the Gordian knot of psyche – soma, the order of disorder and the patient as Other. (shrink)

There is one concept in medicine which is prominent, the symptom. The omnipresence of the symptom seems, however, not to be reflected by an equally prominent curiosity aimed at investigating this concept as a phenomenon. In classic, traditional or conventional medical diagnostics and treatment, the lack of distinction with respect to the symptom represents a minor problem. Faced with enigmatic conditions and their accompanying labels such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, medically unexplained symptoms, and functional somatic syndromes, the contestation of (...) the symptom and its origin is immediate and obvious and calls for further exploration. Based on a description of the diagnostic framework encompassing medically unexplained conditions and a brief introduction to how such symptoms are managed both within and outside of the medical clinic, we argue on one hand how unexplained conditions invite us to reconsider and re-think the concept we call a “symptom” and on the other hand how the concept “symptom” is no longer an adequate and necessary fulcrum and must be enriched by socio-cultural, phenomenological and existential dimensions. Consequently, our main aim is to expand both our interpretative horizon and the linguistic repertoire in the face of those appearances we label medically unexplained symptoms. (shrink)