Trudie Chalder - 17July 2017 - Roehampton Child Psychopathology

[Woolie]

You mean the "no-one is saying it's all in your head, but all health problems also have psychosocial aspects and we can help you try to deal with these to help you move twoards recovery" crowd? It's a bit annoying we're lacking in a shorter label for them

Or the "we-think-its-all-in-your-head-but-are-to-wily-to-admit-that-openly-so-we-use-doublespeak-instead" crowd?

 

[Esther12]

Or the "we-think-its-all-in-your-head-but-are-to-wily-to-admit-that-openly-so-we-use-doublespeak-instead" crowd?

Finally, we've found one that slips off the tongue!

 

[Snow Leopard]

The IQ thing is funny as the study showed that both the patients had IQs skewed well above average - eg the participants in the study were very unusual. I mean 21% of CFS patients had IQs above ~120! Chalder is trying to make out that their performance is not affected by the illness, so the parent's "high expectations" are therefore unrealistic. It's unfounded BS.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19616144/
Less biased study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4724362/

 

[Woolie]

The IQ thing is funny as the study showed that both the patients had IQs skewed well above average - eg the participants in the study were very unusual. I mean 21% of CFS patients had IQs above ~120! Chalder is trying to make out that their performance is not affected by the illness, so the parent's "high expectations" are therefore unrealistic. It's unfounded BS.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19616144/
Less biased study:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4724362/

Takes a lot to anger me these days, but this is nasty, sickening rubbish that blames parents for their kids' illness, and should not be allowed to be published.

There is a lot of junk science in the general fields of psychological medicine and health psychology - its a field where the weaker researcher can flourish because theoretical and research standards are weak. But little of it is as nasty and harmful as this awful rubbish.

 

[Woolie]

I just read the full piece, and it seems the authors have greatly overestimated their own IQ's:

Parental expectations of IQ were significantly higher for patients with CFS than for healthy controls. However, the discrepancy between expectation and actual IQ did not differ significantly between groups (t=−1.7, P=.09).

Of course, we would not expect these idiots to explore reverse causal relationships (the illness affecting the IQ score), that's way too complex.

But it seems that there's not even any need to show statistical reliability for the key comparison. No worries, you can still get published - hey, its health psychology!

 

[Cheshire]

Takes a lot to anger me these days, but this is nasty, sickening rubbish that blames parents for their kids' illness, and should not be allowed to be published.

Blaming the parents is like a knee-jerk reaction when health professionals are confronted to "MUS".
A psychologist I met told me she had a 10 y.o. patient suffering from depression. She got better so she discharged her. But a few weeks after, the mother called her. Her daughter couldn't walk at all, she was at the hospital, where the staff couldn't find anything wrong, so you guess what her diagnosis was...

The first thing they said was to advise the mother not to visit her daughter. The psychologist was taken aback, even though the girl had had a mild depressive episode, the parents were caring, and there was not a single reason to isolate the girl from them. She firmly recommended the mother to visit her daughter as usual, which she did under the disapproving eyes of the ward team.

So here we are, someone can be accused without any proof, just on the basis of unproven pseudo psychology. This is totally insane.

I have heard so many stories of that kind since getting ill. People mistreated by lazy doctors who missed difficult diagnosis. But the stories involving kids are just intolerable. The situation is so destructive for the children and their whole family. It's traumatising for everyone.


(When the girl was discharged by the hospital, the parents looked for a specialist who discovered she had a serious knee-cap problem. She got operated and recovered quickly.)

 

[slysaint]

I would have liked to know what she was saying when she brought up the slide on 'role of significant others' as she uses the phrase 'I don't believe in ME', whereas the title of the talk only uses 'chronic fatigue syndrome' and apart from one CFS/ME reference she uses only CFS or chronic fatigue.
As @Dolphin has picked up on another thread (RE Peter Whites GETSET paper where the acronym ME is not explained/expanded and appears in quotes(?)).

It gives the impression that 'ME' is a 'nickname' for a fictitious illness that only patients believe they have,
and that chronic fatigue (with or without the syndrome) is an entirely treatable psychological illness caused by emotional problems and stress.

 

[Cinders66]

More symptoms focussing crap

The worst thing a family could do is try to ignore/over ride push through the symptoms and not avoid enough, that's how most of us wound up severe

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

I wonder how anybody I'll or healthy is supposed to avoid distress? Surely that's a key part of making us HUMAN BEINGS? I wonder what sort of treatment allows you to stop having feelings. Presumably once your emotions are stripped from you, you then encounter other problems or maybe that's what happened to them?

I really do wish there was a biochemical test for delusional behaviour. Surely these people must live in an alternative universe where their opinion is such a grand thing. Here on planet earth it just sounds like tripe to me.

 

[slysaint]

I was going to 'jokingly' comment that TC may start calling whatever it is she does her research on 'Pushy Parent Syndrome', but just did a search and apparently it's already being used:
https://steptohealth.com/teach-children-happiness-not-perfectionism/

I also wonder when TC decided to move from treating/ researching adults to children; why she did is sadly too obvious.

 

[thijs]

You mean the "no-one is saying it's all in your head, but all health problems also have psychosocial aspects and we can help you try to deal with these to help you move twoards recovery" crowd? It's a bit annoying we're lacking in a shorter label for them

They: "Well, the way I always explain it to my patients... Is by using what we call the 'biopsychosocial model'. We think it's important to make a distinction between predisposing, precipitating and perpetuating factors. This doesn't mean it's all in your head, like some people think, haha... CBT is also used to help patients recovering from heart surgery or dealing with chronic pain conditions.

You: "So, I have had CFS for 10 years. If I understand your explanation correctly, you are telling me the first 6 months could have had a biological cause; like genes or an infection. The remaining 95% (114 months) of the illness must have had a psychological cause then?!

They: "HOW DARE YOU CALL THIS A PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLNESS!!!"

 

[Dolphin]

I would have liked to know what she was saying when she brought up the slide on 'role of significant others' as she uses the phrase 'I don't believe in ME', whereas the title of the talk only uses 'chronic fatigue syndrome' and apart from one CFS/ME reference she uses only CFS or chronic fatigue.
As @Dolphin has picked up on another thread (RE Peter Whites GETSET paper where the acronym ME is not explained/expanded and appears in quotes(?)).

Just to be accurate: it wasn't in GETSET but it was used like that in these 2 papers:
https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-017-2437-3

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), also known as ‘ME’, is a long-term disabling condition characterised by debilitating fatigue of unknown cause, post-exertional malaise, cognitive dysfunction and disturbed/unrefreshing sleep, plus other symptoms including muscle and joint pain, headaches, and dizziness [1]. CFS/ME imposes an immense burden on patients, carers and families [2, 3].

https://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12875-017-0635-z

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS, also known as ‘ME’) is a debilitating illness of unknown aetiology and pathophysiology[1]. Characterizing patients’ long-term health status before and after the onset and diagnosis of CFS/ME is important if we are to quantify the health economic and societal costs of CFS/ME, and the effects of diagnosis on health care use.

It is very odd to see an acronym used in a research paper that is not spelt out when it is first used.

 

[Jo Best]

I also wonder when TC decided to move from treating/ researching adults to children; why she did is sadly too obvious.

As she said in 2002..

“Rather than start with the physicians, which might be quite a difficult task, we could make a start with youngsters in schools. My experience is that they are much easier to educate. The only barrier is the parents. Once we have the child on our side we are in a very good position”. p.14 http://www.margaretwilliams.me/2016/proof-positive-revisited.pdf

 

[slysaint]

As she said in 2002..

@Jo Best this is not aimed at you.
What is the point in talking about 'educating the medical profession and the public' while allowing Trudie Chalder, Esther Crawley, Hazel O'Dowd (thanks to AfME) etc etc to continue to spread the wrong information as 'Experts'??
Is no one vetting what these people are saying/doing?

 

[Deepwater]

I have to wonder what Sonya Chowdhury makes of this type of characterisation of parent and child given her son has ME.

She's not exactly free to speak out, then

 

[RogerBlack]

Is no one vetting what these people are saying/doing?

Correct.
There is no real monitoring other than them being reported by members of the audience(s) or others that may be aware of the content to their professional or regulatory bodies.

The effective regulation otherwise is essentially zero.

 

[Solstice]

As she said in 2002..

That quote continues to send chills down my spine. Ugh.

 

[Chrisb]

I am interested in the "symptom lead behaviour", mentioned on one of the slides.

I am unable to understand the jargon, but have not heard of the heavy metal hypothesis since being asked about the age of the plumbing in the house, about 36 years ago.

 

[RogerBlack]

I am interested in the "symptom lead behaviour", mentioned on one of the slides.

I am unable to understand the jargon, but have not heard of the heavy metal hypothesis since being asked about the age of the plumbing in the house, about 36 years ago.

I'm fairly sure it's a typo.
"symptom-led behaviour".

In other words, 'paying overly close attention to normal exercise symptoms and modifying your behaviour in order to perpetuate the illness state'

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

I'm fairly sure it's a typo.
"symptom-led behaviour".

In other words, 'paying overly close attention to normal exercise symptoms and modifying your behaviour in order to perpetuate the illness state'

He lead you right into that one