Crohn's disease.

Q: Do you consider that all disease states are useful to the organism as you propose for cancer?  How does it apply to Crohn's disease which I have?

A: Disease states are solutions of WOB  to a problem (threat) which it confronts. Each solution is the best under the circumstances. Disease states are not useful but the solutions are. This is my interpretation of Aristotle's final cause. Tumor should be regarded as a favorable solution, and  a physician is allowed to treat it only if his solution is better.

The same applies to  Crohn's disease. It is the best solution the WOB came with, and treatment is justified only if leading to a better one. In order to find an adequate treatment, one ought  first answer  what are the four causes of Crohn's disease?

You ought to know, since it is your disease, and not Crohn's, who never experienced it as you do.  Crohn found the Efficient cause  yet he and his followers ignore the other causes. Now that you carry the disease Efficient cause is obviously irrelevant. Yet the other three are extremely relevant,  since they can be treated. Material cause, is  the basic stuff of which the disease is composed; which includes your mind and the body.  Formal cause, would direct you how to deal with diarrhea and bowel obstruction. Final cause would explain  the benefit of having Crohn's disease.  I believe that Crohn's disease protects you somehow from a greater evil, whose nature is unknown to us.

This is also how I regard sore throat. It curbs infection in your throat and does not let it  proceed into the lung. By the same token I believe that Crohn’s disease might be WOB's way to  curb this particular infection.

Did you try to find out what the other three causes  of your disease are? Here I call your attention to the Crohn's-Yogi metaphor. A Crohn's-Yogi  knows all three causes, and lives with his disease in health (?!) If you find this sentence confusing please read the chapter about Cancer-Yogi.

Psychiatric disease

Q: Where would psychiatric diseases come in this Aristotelian analysis? Do they have efficient causes?

A: I regard  the 'four causes' as a tool to stimulate thinking, yet in order to understand disease, I prefer my  metaphors: Wisdom of the Body and Mind. By understanding I mean, to be able to apply a treatment which is better than  WOB's solution to a given situation.

This applies also to psychiatric diseases. Take for instance paranoia which according to Freud results from the suppression of a homosexual urge. This urge is conveyed to the Mind by WOB. Actually it is the patient's  WOB which is homosexual. It urges the mind to seduce a male lover. Mind which represents the society refuses. In order to function, WOB  comes with a (compromise) solution known as paranoia. More about this you will find in WOB and Gender

Paranoia is therefore the Final Cause. The Efficient cause is the society, which forbids homosexuality.  Formal cause,  are the patient's delusions, and the Material Cause, his misery.