Since early childhood I have often heard this expression that I find interesting: "Everyone has a bit of a madman and a doctor", and this over the years has become a questionable and challenging element to try to at least understand the literal meaning if it really exists.

Everybody is a little bit of a madman and a doctor: myth or truth?

To understand its meaning is actually a great cultural challenge, because I understand that in a certain way we have a little of each, regardless of the situation in which I find myself, because we always know when a headache, fever, and so on appear, not to mention that most of the time we are not understood in many things we say and think.

Faced with this paradox and with a lot of curiosity I decided to write this article, with the intention of trying to understand what is behind the lines.

My intention is not to try to explain the reason that motivated someone to write this proverb, nor the circumstances of this, nor even to philosophize, but to produce reflection.

Understanding: Everybody's a Little Crazy and a Little Doctor

This Portuguese proverb summarizes a behavior that many of us live daily. Being a popular context, every day we find ourselves in several situations that somehow give a certain credibility to the phrase: "Of doctor and madman everyone has a little", making it increasingly contemporary, with many other similar expressions.

When we think about the possibility of being a doctor, even if we are not, we understand that this happens when, at some point, we use those medicines on our own or when they are indicated by people close to us who, rightly or wrongly, try to help us.

In relation to madness at all times, we are misunderstood, targets of thoughts and words that many say about us, loaded with a range of judgments, where many give themselves the right to do without at least understanding the real situation or even the reason for our attitudes and decisions that we often take.

The real madness

It is for this reason that we are considered "crazy" by many, and they even say that the life we lead is truly insane. This is so intriguing that there was even a movie in 1989 called "The Dream Team", starring three great actors: Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle.

In my opinion, this film shows exactly this speech, with a great satire of this theme, bringing to our diverse reality questions about our behavior where we are often this "doctor" and this "madman" when we need them, or why not say both at the same time until proven otherwise.

The Doctor and the Madman

The doctor is always the one we go to when something in our health or well-being is not going so well and we need help. It is the health professional authorized by the state to practice medicine; it takes care of human health by preventing, diagnosing, treating, and curing diseases, which requires detailed knowledge of academic disciplines (such as anatomy and physiology) behind diseases and treatment - the science of medicine - and also competence in its applied practice - the art of medicine.

It studies and detects the abnormalities that interfere with the normal life cycle of individuals, intervening to prevent their progression, or even curing the disease that manifests itself through them. It also plays a role in disease prevention and public health education. According to the dictionary: Means crazy, one who has lost his reason; alienated, insane, crazy. Devoid of sense; unwise, reckless, foolhardy, stoic.

Filled with fury; furious, hallucinated. Dominated by an intense emotion: crazy with joy. Intense, lively, violent: crazy love. Contrary to reason; absurd: crazy project. Who has no control over himself; uncontrolled. We can also say that he is the one whose mental faculties are pathologically altered.

Of Doctor and Madman everyone has a little bit according to Foucault

According to the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) the knowledge about madness, which is enclosed in psychiatric discourse, is drawn from its Sitz in Leben (a German expression used in the exegesis of biblical texts. It is commonly translated as "vital context"), the place of existence, namely: the institutions that control the madman, which are: family, church, justice, hospital, etc. Foucault expresses that society has "institutions of control" (family, church, justice, etc.), and it is these institutions that tell us how we should act, speak, dress, in short, how to be "normal".

If you don't fit the standards imposed by these institutions, then you are crazy, a misfit. In view of this, we can rightly say that there is always a good or bad reaction from all people in the divergent situations they act in, where they are in parts these doctors and in others extremely crazy.

Thinking about this reminds me of a certain kind of behavior, because I understand that wherever we are, there will always be one possessing a home-made recipe for some disease, and at the same time another very different one committing a certain kind of madness that we don't understand.

Conclusion

We can then understand that the doctor studies the nature and causes of illnesses and has the ability to treat and cure, just like us, in the everyday situations of our lives, while the madman has the ability to think and face challenges in such a way as to rise above facts or things that for an entirely normal person would be difficult.

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In light of this, I ask myself without hesitation, will I ever stop acting like a doctor in any situation when it comes up? I find it difficult, because we grew up inserted in this cultural context and changing this is as complex as we imagine. Another point to reflect on: will I stop being considered crazy by many?

This is also somewhat unlikely because as long as we are alive, living with completely different people, we will be called that. I want to close here by making just one remark: "Everybody is a little bit of a doctor and a little bit of a crazy person", but it so happens that I am neither a doctor nor a crazy person, but just a thinker!

References

//jornalnoroeste.com/pagina/penso-logo-existo/ - //blog.vitta.com.br/2019/12/27 - //www.dicio.com.br/louco/

This article was written by Cláudio Néris B. Fernandes ( [email protected] ), art educator, art therapist and student of Clinical Psychoanalysis.