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Short interview with Suzanne O'Sullivan on psychosomatic illness on NPR

ash0787

Senior Member
Messages
308
well thats just great, so not only are we apparently making it up, but we are not even aware of it, so it would have to be proven by observation like in Blade Runner which obviously wont work in our case otherwise the psychobabblers would have done it already, and since its psychological in origin rather than psychiatric theres no way to prove it with a biological mechanism either

It reminds me of those religion arguments where its like " dinosaur bones prove evolution theory and therefore disprove existence of god " so you just say " but god also put the dinosaur bones there to trick people into thinking that " theres no way to prove or disprove it but its obviously contrived to get around a solid opposing argument.

I know it doesn't mention CFS but presumably this person has attacked CFS before ?
 

Forbin

Senior Member
Messages
966
I wondered why the article referred to this 16 month old work as a "new" book. It appears that there's a new hardcover edition (1/17/2017), with a new cover, put out by a U.S. publisher. There was also a paperback edition put out by yet another publisher on 7/20/16.

Notice that the title has been changed from "It's All In Your Head" to "Is It All In Your Head?"

OLD......................................................................................NEW
10/05/2015.............................................................................1/17/2017

31YoYixXsKL._SX309_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
...........
512heJJQh5L.jpg
 
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Keith Geraghty

Senior Member
Messages
491
O'SULLIVAN: I use the word imaginary in the title of this book. But really, it's to imply that these symptoms come from the imagination, but they're not imaginary. They are incredibly real.

I cant even begin to say what I think of her and her statements - I think she has some psychological issues of her own; - can she even understand her own synthax; 'I use the title imaginary - its to imply theyre imagined but not imaginary - they are incredibly real'
 

Snow Leopard

Hibernating
Messages
5,902
Location
South Australia
O'SULLIVAN: I use the word imaginary in the title of this book. But really, it's to imply that these symptoms come from the imagination, but they're not imaginary. They are incredibly real.

Sounds like an excellent example of newspeak.

O'Sullivan relying on controversy for marketing reasons, something she clearly thinks is more important than the well-being of her patients...
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
O'SULLIVAN: I use the word imaginary in the title of this book. But really, it's to imply that these symptoms come from the imagination, but they're not imaginary. They are incredibly real.

I cant even begin to say what I think of her and her statements - I think she has some psychological issues of her own; - can she even understand her own synthax; 'I use the title imaginary - its to imply theyre imagined but not imaginary - they are incredibly real'
It's quite logical really - if you imagine that you just have to imagine something to make it real, then all you have to do is imagine that the word imagine means real and then imagine does mean real.

They are incredibly real.

Doesn't incredible mean unbelieveable? So something that starts of as imagined or believed can become unbelievably non-imaginary.

This is complicated stuff. She must be very clever.
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
Notice that the title has been changed from "It's All In Your Head" to "Is It All In Your Head?"
But I'm assuming the answer she gives is "Yes".
I think she has some psychological issues of her own; - can she even understand her own synthax; 'I use the title imaginary - its to imply theyre imagined but not imaginary - they are incredibly real'
That's why they call it psychobabble.
 

Keith Geraghty

Senior Member
Messages
491
Its certainly all in her head - she needs a course on reflexivity and researcher biases perhaps a better understanding of interpretivist epistemology
  • relativist ontology - assumes that reality as we know it is constructed intersubjectively through the meanings and understandings developed socially and experientially.
  • transactional or subjectivist epistemology - assumes that we cannot separate ourselves from what we know. The investigator and the object of investigation are linked such that who we are and how we understand the world is a central part of how we understand ourselves, others and the world.
here is a doctor who has never written a single paper on ME/CFS, writing a whole chatpter on her views of ME/CFS based on anecdotes from her clinical meetings with patients - and then going on every form of media to propegate her views as science

she blocks all critics - and seems very nervous in most interviews I hear her do (I get nervous myself in talsk but I suspect her nerves are more to do with lack of confidence in what she is saying and the possibility of hard questions - I would love to debate her live sometime
 

Aurator

Senior Member
Messages
625
Notice that the title has been changed from "It's All In Your Head" to "Is It All In Your Head?"
It's possible other parts of the book have undergone slight revision too. I notice the new, interrogatively-titled edition is described as 352 pages long; the old one was 336 pages. This may just mean the layout has changed, or it may mean readers now get even more bull-carp for their money.

On another note, the change of title alone is enough to make me question whether this new book can still legitimately be described as having won the Wellcome prize. If I'd published a book in the late medieval period entitled "The sun goes round the earth" and won a prize for it, and then I'd republished it as "Does the sun go round the earth?", I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect people to have objected that my original thesis had changed somewhat and the new book was not quite the same book I'd won the prize for. This assumes I could hear their objections whilst I simmered in the vat of boiling oil.