BPSers using new research to justify psychological treatments

[slysaint]

This seems to be creeping in a lot
(from Psychology Today)

A New Approach to Treating Hard-to-Cure Illnesses
If your body knew what was wrong, what would it say?
Posted Oct 01, 2017

"A Stanford University study published just last month validates the intuition I had about Carla, showing that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome --now known as Myalgic encephalomyelitis (brain and spinal cord inflammation)--is indeed a real disease with 17 distinct blood markers called cytokines (signaling molecules that mediate and regulate immunity and inflammation such as interferon and interleukin) being elevated, 13 of which are pro-inflammatory."

"But knowing that a few years ago would not have changed the way I treated -- and ultimately cured Carla."

"By giving her body a voice, it wasn’t Carla I asked, it was her body."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...710/new-approach-treating-hard-cure-illnesses

 

[arewenearlythereyet]

ridiculous. Nice that she got a plug for her new book in at the end. I got a bit confused about whether she was a basket ball player or a sales and marketing person...perhaps she now has so much energy after her "treatment" she can do both.

So happy for Carla if she exists.

 

[alex3619]

BPSers is too hard to say. I think I am going to call them BiPSers from now on. I wish that all the bipsers out there would engage with science, reason and evidence. I am sure some do, but I can't seem to find any.

 

[trishrhymes]

So Carla was suffering from work related stress and unhappiness. Take away the stress and the symptoms get better. Symptoms 'persistent tiredness, trouble concentrating, sleep disturbances, aching joints'.
No mention of PEM, so it's not ME/CFS. What an irresponsible article.

 

[A.B.]

It's probably just made up to promote the book that came out a few days ago.

 

[Demepivo]

This is from her bio on Psychology Today

https://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/chris-gilbert-md-phd

Chris Gilbert, M.D., Ph.D., is an Integrative and Holistic Medicinephysician, focusing mostly on public speaking. For 15 years she was in private practice in California, specializing in the combination of Western and Eastern Medicine and dedicating her life to treating and curing symptoms and illnesses that other physicians haven’t been able to address. She is known for her exceptional success in treating chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety, depression, recurrent infections, lower back pain, sexual problems, unexplained abdominal pain, and arthritis through methods she pioneered.

Dr. Gilbert holds a General Medicine M.D. and Ph.D. from Cochin Port-Royal Medical School in Paris, France, and certifications in Hyperbaric Medicine, Sexology, Acupuncture, and Homeopathy.

 

[Hajnalka]

This approach sounded very familiar to me and then it was mentioned that it's Gestalttherapy - imported from Germany. Sorry for all the BPS ideas the Germans invented. The article is really plain ridiculous. Carla hated her new job and felt tired, had sleep problems and no appetite. All the symptoms started at the same time as her new stressful unfulfilling job. Then she went back to her old job and was cured.

I ask the question: “If your body had a voice, what would it say?”

In Carla’s case, her body said: “I feel very weak. I cannot do much at a time. I need to pace myself and rest every half an hour.” Then it added: “ Life is difficult and boring. I miss my old job. It was easy and fun”

My body loved my job (and my dog who was allowed to come with my body to work agrees).

I also always ask what happened in the patient’s private and professional life just before the symptoms started.

Are they kidding us. Do they actually believe we've been sick for decades and have not thought of "what happened in my life just before the symptoms started" (I personally spent the last 15 years thinking about this question).


I really dislike that the author says "me" and "I" and not "us" in several sentences when talking about solving Carla's problem:

That was the why that ultimately allowed me to find a solution to her problem.

Carla, it turns out, was suffering from an inflammatory brain and spinal cord disease

And often, relieving the stress, relieves the inflammatory symptoms and allows the body to heal.

No words.

 

[NelliePledge]

if my body had a voice it would say something I cant write here that ends in off

 

[Invisible Woman]

My body loved my job

Couldn't agree more. My mind loved it too.

Both body and mind loved all the sports and hobbies that I now can't do, thoroughly enjoyed hopping into the car to travel long distances to meet up with friends.

We had lots of plans to go travelling too.

If I got better tomorrow both my body and mind would like to go back to how things were, please.

 

[Skycloud]

I would love to hear what Montoya would say to her. She has a cheek referencing him.

 

[Mithriel]

Always be wary of science that is presented as a new book rather than peer review (even if that is not terribly good!)

One of the things I hate about the BPSers is that they prevent us getting proper psychological help if we have trouble coping or develop a mental health problem.

NOW we have this rubbish creeping in. I have gone to an MS therapy centre for years and they nearly all have some kind of extreme stress before they developed MS (though it may be that the stress just brought on a major flare which was recognised as MS). But this does not mean that MS is emotionally produced. There is a subtle interaction between the immune system and stress but this rubbish will not help anyone at all. It will set everything back years.

We have an unconscious mind but it is not a Freudian seething mass of sexuality. Stress and emotion interact with the immune system but not in any way that "positive thinking" means we can avoid illness. At best stress makes existing disease worse.

 

[Sean]

and certifications in Hyperbaric Medicine, Sexology, Acupuncture, and Homeopathy.

If that is not a clear warning sign, I don't know what is.

 

[TiredSam]

I ask the question: “If your body had a voice, what would it say?”

My body does have a voice. It's called my voice.

And it would say "if your head had a brain, what would you have studied instead of homeopathy?"

 

[Sean]

I ask the question: “If your body had a voice, what would it say?”

Quack-free zone!

Should fit nicely on a t-shirt.

 

[Woolie]

The writer seems have read a bit about Gestalt therapy, which puts a lot of emphasis on how we unconsciously communicate our feelings through bodily gestures. Gestalt therapists like to analyse a person's posture and tone of voice, and such like, believing that these are more reliable indicators of mental state than what the person actually tells you.

You can see the therapist's confirmation biases come through in their search for a stressor. First, Carla says she misses her job and her easy former life. But the therapist decides to search further - and lo and behold, uncovers a some negative stuff:

In Carla’s case, I discovered that a few months before her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome started, she got promoted from a simple selling and marketing job to a high responsibility VP job. Even though she was making much more money at being a VP, she hated her new responsibilities, the immersion in administrative drudgery, having to settle office disputes and the stress that came with it. This was an enormous burden for her and soon after she got promoted, she got some kind of virus with a fever and sore throat. She recovered from this probable virus infection but soon after the chronic fatigue started.

The double whammy, replacing work she loved with work she hated, created severe, chronic stress.

I would say that if you questioned anybody for this long - sick or healthy - they would come up with similar narratives. What is more characteristic of life than constant changes that carry with them both good sides and negative sides?

There is also the glossing over of the viral trigger.

The there is the usual stress humbug:

...stress triggers the release of hormones such as cortisol that, in excessive amounts, weaken the immune system, making it more susceptible to infection and less able to repair itself, sometimes triggering inflammatory disease by hampering our body’s ability to stop the immune system from attacking healthy tissue…such as Carla’s brain and spinal cord. Indeed, Dr. Stojanovich and colleagues at Kosa University Medical Center discovered that 80% of patients with autoimmune inflammatory disorders had experienced acute of chronic stress shortly before onset of their symptoms. And often, relieving the stress, relieves the inflammatory symptoms and allows the body to heal.

Oh, so stress "weakens" the immune system, but at the same time is also the cause of the extreme immune reactions we see in autoimmune inflammatory diseases? That's convenient to the argument.

There's also the usual unsignalled switching between talk of psychological and physical stressors, as and when it suits the argument.

I also love how helpless Carla is made to look. Like she was clueless about her life situation until this wonder healer came along and told her how it really was.

I wonder whether maybe Carla was just being polite. Grateful that someone was actually listening to her, she politely said that she felt a little better. It seems to be common for doctors to come away with a very different impression of the success of their treatments than the one you get when you talk to the patient directly.

 

[Woolie]

"if your head had a brain, what would you have studied instead of homeopathy?"

!!!

 

[Woolie]

I'm actually pretty fascinated by the real Psychology of all this. All humans seem to have a need to see things as controllable by their own efforts, and we've always been prone to seeing physical ill health as a sign of emotional suffering ('he died of a broken heart').

Then add to that the special psychological vulnerabilities of the health practitioner - the need to feel they are offering real help, and their lack of awareness of how their own biases affect the reasoning process. What you come up with is a recipe for real bullshit.

 

[Forbin]

"By giving her body a voice, it wasn’t Carla I asked, it was her body."

What could go wrong?

 

[Alvin2]

Carla did not have ME/CFS, depression caused by life circumstances certainly exists but is a separate disease. This is akin to saying someone with PTSD has ME/CFS, thats ridiculous.

Also i'm no immune expert but we are under attack from bacteria/viruses/pathogens 24/7/365.25, i assume if you test indiscriminately everyone will test positive for something

 

[Woolie]

Carla did not have ME/CFS,

There's is nothing to suggest Carla didn't have ME, and lots to suggest she did (viral trigger, reported symptoms).

Carla's probably made up anyway.

And even if Carla wasn't an ME case, this scenario is exactly what people with 'real' ME encounter every day, and theses kinds of therapists will tell just the same sort of stories about how they helped them 'recover' by finding the source of their stress.

So do you think this stuff is all okay when applied to sad/burned out people, but just not to us? I certainly don't.