title: "It feels good to be measured": clinical role-play, Walker Percy, and the tingles.
abstract: A large online community has recently formed around autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), a pleasant and poorly understood somatic reaction to specific interpersonal triggers. Its web-based manifestations include a variety of amateur videos designed to elicit the reaction, many of which feature protracted imitations of a clinician's physical exam. This analysis considers through a literary lens the proximity of this phenomenon to clinical diagnostics, focusing in particular on characterizations of spiritual isolation elaborated in Love in the Ruins (1971), the third novel by physician-writer Walker Percy (1916-1990). Within this speculative framework, the tendency to derive pleasure from clinical milieus, real or constructed, may be interpreted as a quality particular to the postmodern psyche. Viewing web-based clinical role-play in light of Percy's writing also underscores the possibility that routine diagnostic assessments may have independent therapeutic implications.
authors.forename: Nitin K
authors.initials: NK
authors.lastname: Ahuja
mesh_terms: D004644:Emotions; D005059:Euphoria; D006801:Humans; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D009862:Online Systems