Book published this week in UK referring to ME as psychosomatic

[Valentijn]

He concludes: "The question that I would want to put to the somatiser is, then, not 'Really you are emotionally hurting aren't you?' but rather 'Shall we try to understand together why you aren't emotionally hurting when you need to be?'"

Widespread medical neglect from dogmatic morons makes my emotions want to hurt so bad

 

[jimells]

Clearing out organic conditions that psychiatry and psychology cannot treat ought to be a good thing, allowing these therapists to focus on more relevant cases, but they seem to find it hard to let go. Hard to accept perhaps that one's life work may be a pile of mince.

I recently heard a radio report that traditional psychoanalysts can't make much of a living anymore. For some strange reason, I don't feel sorry for them.

 

[jimells]

What a meaningless logorrhea... He uses complex words, refers to philosophers and believes that makes him a highly intelligent person.

I took one look at his mad ravings (which I'm an expert on!) and decided, no thanks. I'll save my strength for something else...

Judging from the lengths of his posts, he must not have many patients, and a good thing, too!

 

[nasim marie jafry]

It is not just the London/Oxbridge-Wessley school-cosy media clique we are up against in UK, there is also the not very bright reader to consider who has awarded SoS 5 stars:

I thought this book was a truly fascinating read. I have always accepted that there is a strong link between the brain and the body and that the brain can produce symptoms in the body which are wholly unrelated to any physical cause. When I was a child I always used to get a stomach upset on the first day of the school term. Once I was at school the upset disappeared completely. My mother sat me down and explained to me that sometimes the brain plays tricks on the body and that I would feel all right once I got to school. She did of course make sure there wasn't anything I was worrying about at school - and there wasn't because I actually enjoyed school. I did gradually grow out of it as I got older.

'Damaskcat's' book review is naturally the centre of her world - when it was downrated she called the detractors a 'lynch mob'.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1QYT6RUTG6DJB/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00T5H3Y2K

I should not even go back to Amazon but SoS is doing the book festival circuit/ circus here, & the book is definitely looking like a popular summer read, though early days, it will probably end up being remaindered, if readers have any sense.

 

[jimells]

As for healthy people's recommendations, I sometimes think they believe they're well because they did something right, and people who are ill did something wrong lifestyle-wise, or are doing something wrong now. Hence we need their not-so-expert opinions to get better, or something!

In the US we are taught from birth to obey without question. If one obeys, one will be rewarded. Disobedience will also be rewarded, but with suffering. Therefore, if we are suffering with illness, well obviously it's because we failed to obey: "I'm a good person. I followed all the rules. So why did something bad happen to me? I must not be good enough to be well."

Even eating is a moral act: "I really want a chocolate, but chocolate is bad, therefore if I eat it, that makes me bad."

It's all about controlling people, and putting them into their "proper" place in the social hierarchy. People who are sick, old, and poor, well, we are pretty much at the bottom. Everyone else wants to keep us on the bottom so they can feel better about themselves. Ugh. Stop the world: I want to get off. This amusement park isn't amusing anymore.

 

[jimells]

I also think we're more likely to try to handle this alone,

For many of us, we have no choice but to handle this alone. After being abandoned by family, friends, and partner, and finding most doors slammed in my face, I find myself very much alone, except for PR and my feathered friends.

 

[SOC]

"The question that I would want to put to the somatiser is, then, not 'Really you are emotionally hurting aren't you?' but rather 'Shall we try to understand together why you aren't emotionally hurting when you need to be?'"

These folks are getting good at the "When did you stop beating your wife?" questions, aren't they?

 

[jimells]

The question I would want to put to Mr Gipps is "Shall we try to understand together why you're so wrapped up in the neatness of your own intellectualizing that you're incapable of noticing what's actually going on in the world around you?"

The phrase "mental masturbation" comes to mind...

 

[Snow Leopard]

He concludes: "The question that I would want to put to the somatiser is, then, not 'Really you are emotionally hurting aren't you?' but rather 'Shall we try to understand together why you aren't emotionally hurting when you need to be?'"

How does this guy keep coming up with this stuff?

Most people don't assume a hypothesis (eg somatisation) is a theory until they have evidence of how it occurs...

 

[Countrygirl]

It is not just the London/Oxbridge-Wessley school-cosy media clique we are up against in UK, there is also the not very bright reader to consider who has awarded SoS 5 stars:



'Damaskcat's' book review is naturally the centre of her world - when it was downrated she called the detractors a 'lynch mob'.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1QYT6RUTG6DJB/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00T5H3Y2K

I should not even go back to Amazon but SoS is doing the book festival circuit/ circus here, & the book is definitely looking like a popular summer read, though early days, it will probably end up being remaindered, if readers have any sense.

I wouldn't take this reviewer too seriously! Have you read her reviewing history?
She has written nearly 2 000 reviews on mostly light-weight novels, awarding nearly all four or more usually five stars. She writes between one and three a day. Just amazing! It must prove to be very lucrative as she cannot have any other life, poor soul.

Edited to say that I read that she acknowledges that she is sent free copies of books to review. I guess a five-star review guarantees more free books. Definitely not to be taken seriously.

 

[Aurator]

Edited to say that I read that she acknowledges that she is sent free copies of books to review. I guess a five-star review guarantees more free books. Definitely not to be taken seriously.

It seems she's followed Brian R Martin's lead and deleted her post. It probably harms their overall reviewer rating (or something similarly precious to them) if a review they've written gets lots of "unhelpful" ratings. Their personal vanity complements the vanity of their arguments.

 

[nasim marie jafry]

Yup, just looked, it's gone - why do these people waste our energy writing reviews that we then reply to in a genuine attempt to educate, only to delete later. She had - unsolicited - got into the SW saga and 'the threats', so I did not engage again, no point. Maybe that got her more 'dislikes'. I didn't know the ratings of people's reviews actually mattered! So I guess that is what irked her. But the actual substance of the book she is reviewing is irrelevant. Good god. I also see Mr Intellectual Richard has not been vocal since he was challenged...it would be quite amusing to watch these review threads unfold were it not so very serious.

 

[alex3619]

I recently heard a radio report that traditional psychoanalysts can't make much of a living anymore. For some strange reason, I don't feel sorry for them.

Psychoanalysis is dying but zombies live on. Its hidden in the DSM5, just no longer called psychoanalysis.

 

[Aurator]

Dr O'Sullivan speaks about ME (at approx. 6 minute point) on Ireland AM:
http://www.tv3.ie/ireland_am_video.php?locID=1.65.74&video=94706

She appears to be on somewhat uncomfortable ground, and is careful in her assertions about what science can tell us about it:

"Nobody knows what causes ME. Nobody knows what causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. All that we know for certain is that there are no consistently abnormal investigations...We would all like to know exactly what the cause is".

Then there's the bit of backsliding about psychotherapy being worth a try: "You've nothing to lose".

Maybe a twinge of regret that she included ME in her book is detectable.

ETA: I see Damaskcat's Amazon review is back again - at least an edited version of it.

 

[nasim marie jafry]

@Aurator

Then there's the bit of backsliding about psychotherapy being worth a try: "You've nothing to lose".

Ha, I saw that prog a week or so ago - definitely backsliding since her ME/CFS chapter is NOT saying psychotherapy is worth a try, she is saying she believes ME/CFS is false illness beliefs, I gathered some of the quotes from her book in a blogpost at weekend. Oh, and I read Richard Gipps' blog review of her book, that paragraph at the end about 'emotionally hurting' would actually be one of the funniest things I've ever read in connection with our illness (were it not so tragically dangerous). Jeez, nothing like pontificating NONSENSE from ivory towers... Anyway, here is blog post: The Daft Neurologist:

http://velo-gubbed-legs.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-daft-neurologist-and-finding-oafs.html

 

[user9876]

@Aurator


Ha, I saw that prog a week or so ago - definitely backsliding since her ME/CFS chapter is NOT saying psychotherapy is worth a try, she is saying she believes ME/CFS is false illness beliefs, I gathered some of the quotes from her book in a blogpost at weekend. Oh, and I read Richard Gipps' blog review of her book, that paragraph at the end about 'emotionally hurting' would actually be one of the funniest things I've ever read in connection with our illness (were it not so tragically dangerous). Jeez, nothing like pontificating NONSENSE from ivory towers... Anyway, here is blog post: The Daft Neurologist:

http://velo-gubbed-legs.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-daft-neurologist-and-finding-oafs.html

I wonder if she has been caught out by things like the IoM review. She and others have found it easy to dismiss patients but they find it harder to dismiss other doctors especially when associated with well respected institutions.

It wouldn't surprise me if she was blissfully ignorant of what is happening with ME research but just pushing the same old views. The people point out the research and she feels forced to backtrack. However, I bet she wouldn't with draw her book. But then maybe her book stands as an interesting study in the delusions of a doctor and how jumping to conclusions leads to the mislabelling and mistreatment of patients.

 

[Chris from Tampa]

Then there's the bit of backsliding about psychotherapy being worth a try: "You've nothing to lose".

That statement would be universally true of any treatment--if it were true. It's not. There's only so much time and money and exertion. Assuming that psychotherapy--or anything else for that matter--is neutral, that no harm will come and there may not be any good, what's it replacing? What would you be doing you weren't pursuing psychotherapy? You spend your energy allotment for the day going to see someone knowing it's probably not going to help because the science isn't there.

That seems like something to lose to me. It's a patronizing mindset that ignores one of the key limitations of this disease--the inability to just go do things.

 

[nasim marie jafry]

@user9876 I really think she has little experience of ME/CFS since 1990s when she was training, she says as much. Her expertise is in epilepsy/seizures and she states that many of the patients she currently sees with dissociative seizures have a 'history of ME/CFS'. But because of the conflation and confusion of criteria/dustbin diagnosis, we really have no idea of what is wrong with these patients she sees. But this hasn't stopped her building a whole chapter around ME and false beliefs. She references the HPA axis dysfunction but appears not to know much about *any* of the other numerous findings. She will of course know about Wessely school, because of the extensive media coverage he gets here. So she has picked up on that, done a quick google, and hey presto! Suzanne is an expert in ME. This is what is galling - no one has heard of Suzanne O'Sullivan in ME world, but she writes a book and suddenly is an authority. Readers just don't seem too bright. And in the meantime we are appallingly undermined by ignorance.

 

[Wildcat]

The latest Amazon review is pure patient bashing. Claiming patients are 'venomous' , from a retired doctor.

I avoid the nhs due to too many venomous doctors. I cant read those fawning reviews any more, fawning over suzanne o'sullivan and trashing ME sufferers.

 

[Aurator]

The latest Amazon review is pure patient bashing. Claiming patients are 'venomous' , from a retired doctor.

I avoid the nhs due to too many venomous doctors. I cant read those fawning reviews any more, fawning over suzanne o'sullivan and trashing ME sufferers.

It can be upsetting, admittedly, but these sorts of people are hardly the greatest minds out there and have certainly not been keeping abreast of developments in the field.

One thing that does amaze me about people who complain, as they frequently do, of the collective venom, or intolerance, or whatever, shown by PWME in particular, and rarely if ever by people with other putatively psychosomatic conditions, is that they never earnestly ask themselves quite why things are this way. It never seems to occur to them that the peculiar vociferousness of PWME's opposition to psychosomatic claims may be a consequence of their knowing, as surely as anyone can know, that they are not suffering from a psychosomatic illness - just as surely as these goons would know they are not suffering from a psychosomatic illness if they came down with a cold.