The cognitive side of electromagnetic hypersensitivity
Résumé
No satisfying working definition of electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) has ever been proposed, leaving anyone willing to investigate this condition with assertions from alleged sufferers as the only inclusion criterion for participants in his study. The deeply subjective nature of this criterion undoubtedly impedes the scientific understanding of EHS. This paper thus examines the genesis of symptoms attribution to EMF exposure among forty people claiming to suffer from EHS. The data consists of semi-structured interviews conducted with them in person, in various areas of France, over one year between 2012 and 2013. They were analyzed following an ethnographic approach. We observed that in every subject, the attribution of symptoms to EMF exposure results from an identical, seven stages cognitive process through which its obviousness is progressively forged. Nothing in this process appears specific to any set of symptoms, provided they are disturbing and resilient enough. We therefore argue that EHS should less be regarded as a disease in its own right, than as a mental structure making it possible to cope with such symptoms (which might be labeled as medically unexplained).