Visual Signs

Silvia Waisse Priven, MD, PhD
Associação Paulista de Homeopatia / PUC-SP
Gheorghe Jurj, MD, DSc
Romanian Association of Clinical Homeopathy / University of West of
Timisoara
IX SINAPIH/9TH RIM-H
Rio de Janeiro, UERJ, 2008
Medical Praxis
1. COGNITION
2. DECISION
3. ACTION
Cognitive Moments
1.
Goal: /DIAGNOSIS/
2. Means: perception and interpretation of signs
3. Problem: the referent

Clinical entity: general clinical diagnosis

Ill individual: individual clinical diagnosis
But…
 Perception of signs is already conditioned by the
theoretical framework
 Logocentrism: reduction of individual expression to a
single semiotic system, the verbal one
 No semiotic system can be completely translated into
another
For instance:
Reliability
 Consistence of signs:
What does a sign signify?
 Coherence:
Disparate signs indicate a same referent
Channels
 Verbal: speech (oral, written)
 Non verbal: visual, non verbal auditive, touch, smell,
taste
Visual
 Totalities
 Singularities
 Instantaneous
Semiotic systems
Source
Lessing (18th c.)
Verbal
Time: nacheinander
Visual
Space: nebeneinander
Saussure (19th c.)
Discontinuity;
irreversibility;
arbitrariness
Langer (1942)
Discoursiveness;
generality.
Arnheim (1994)
Things and actions as Indivisible
experience.
separate
entities. Simultaneousness,
Sequencial (time)
instantaneousness.
linearity; Continuidade;
multidimensionalidade;
espacialidade.
Representação
holística;
referência
primária
a
singularidades.
Premises
 The patient is a WHOLE and is expressed is
ALL his/her parts
What is seen is not “outside” the patient,
conversely, it expresses from WITHIN, speaks
about the patient’s self from WITHIN
him/herself
Each and every detail may be significant, as a
function of a given CONTEXT
Visual semiosis
The patient presents data available to
visual perception
In order to become SIGNS, they must be
signified (interpreted) by the doctor
The doctor must be able to
RECOGNIZE them and SEEK for them
actively
What can be seen?
 VISIBLE SIGNS are not “physical signs” by default
 Vision allows to collect signs denoting
PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAITS
PHYSIOLOGICAL TRAITS
PATHOLOGICAL TRAITS