Book published this week in UK referring to ME as psychosomatic

[Valentijn]

It's quite frightening to think this "clinician" disregards the symptoms of a third of her patients. I feel sorry for any patient assigned to her clinic.

Seriously. If that's not an admission of guilt for any malpractice lawsuit which comes along, I'm not sure what is.

 

[PeterPositive]

It's quite frightening to think this "clinician" disregards the symptoms of a third of her patients. I feel sorry for any patient assigned to her clinic.

Seriously. If that's not an admission of guilt for any malpractice lawsuit which comes along, I'm not sure what is.

Unfortunately she didn't really say that. At least not from what I can read in the opening post.

She said: "one third of people seen in an average general neurology clinic have symptoms that cannot be explained by medical tests or examinations. In those people, an emotional cause is often suspected"

It's the psyche-of-the-gaps argument
Granted, our knowledge is full of gaps and at times it is wise to choose the best gap-filler we can possibly devise.

I'd be willing to fill the gap with the psyche, if we had a shred of evidence that it leads to full recovery (or at least significant recovery). That doesn't really seem to be the case, though. So, I wonder, on what kind of grounds does a book like this stand on? Philosophy?

 

[worldbackwards]

So, I wonder, on what kind of grounds does a book like this stand on? Philosophy?

Something like that. Certainly nothing very solid, or even so much as a theory. I've put this up already, but I think The Independent review deserves another airing for those who haven't already seen it.

In the end, I shared the frustration of the patient who eventually accepted a psychosomatic diagnosis of his symptoms but asked “how does it happen?” only to be disappointed by the doctor’s silence.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...-answer-the-questions-it-raises-10300946.html

 

[adreno]

That review describe the main problem:

We are informed that one of the “great modern advances” is “the move away from brain-mind dualism”, but at a rhetorical level the book promotes the automatic assumption of a binary opposition between “physiological diseases of the body” and “disorders of the mind”.

 

[garcia]

As I keep saying, neurologists are by far the WORST of all medical specialties. It's usually pompous old dilapidating male neurology consultants with egos bigger than their IQ spewing crap like this but this woman obviously learned from the "best".

This times 10,000. I've heard of MS patients recovering and showing their neurologists their MRI scans (proving recovery) only for the neurologist to tear them up in front of their face.

 

[worldbackwards]

As I keep saying, neurologists are by far the WORST of all medical specialties. It's usually pompous old dilapidating male neurology consultants with egos bigger than their IQ spewing crap like this but this woman obviously learned from the "best".

Well, she's a woman isn't she, there's no need to take her seriously. Probably all hysteria.

 

[Sidereal]

This times 10,000. I've heard of MS patients recovering and showing their neurologists their MRI scans (proving recovery) only for the neurologist to tear them up in front of their face.

No wonder neurologists are so messed up. Their role seems to consist of:

1) Telling one third of their patients that their symptoms are psychosomatic. You need to see a psychiatrist. Please leave my office now, I don't have time to explain how your unconscious intrapsychic conflicts are manifesting as neurological symptoms but rest assured you would be totally in awe of my explanation if I didn't have a waiting room full of people who actually deserve the attention of my majesty.

2) Telling the other two thirds that their symptoms are incurable, nothing can be done, everything is hopeless, you're going to die, there is no point in trying anything, accept your fate passively like a good serf, don't spend any money on vitamins and for God's sake don't take antibiotics to treat your MS. Sorry, gotta go now, I'm writing my grant application for the next awesome treatment that's going to extend the lifespan of ALS patients by 13 days.

 

[mfairma]

Whenever this sort of nonsense pops up, one of the things that makes me most sad is people mistaking the expressions of frustration and anger of terribly ill and desperate people with unreasoning hostility. We lose all possibility of educating because people are so ready to dismiss others as grossly incompetent.

 

[Aurator]

How will O’Sullivan explain the ME Assocation's public rebuttal of her theories relating to ME/CFS, I wonder? That the responsible parties at the MEA are also highly suggestible people, or that PWME have collectively terrorized the MEA into action? (Don't forget how hostile we are.)
From what I can see there are holes in her book big enough to drive a bus through. It's difficult to be stirred to anger by something so inept, or it would be if inept books of this kind weren't still capable of doing considerable harm with their vacuous and irresponsible theorizing.

 

[eafw]

It's difficult to be stirred to anger by something so inept, or it would be if inept books of this kind weren't still capable of doing considerable harm with their vacuous and irresponsible theorizing.

The book in and of itself is the least of it.

Many, many more people will read the reviews. For instance the one in The Times:

"ME is just one of the possibly psychosomatic conditions that patients present with ... I had no difficulty identifying the underlying truth of O’Sullivan’s encounter with such a person, because I have known two or three victims of the condition myself ... the reaction of many ME sufferers, their relatives and friends and the organisations that represent them, to the idea that the condition is psychosomatic — caused by the mind and not by a disease — is intensely hostile. I have experienced this hostility. "

This will be probably be read by thousands times more people than read the book (they don't need to read the book, and there's certainly no serious questioning of the book anywhere in the mainstream) and they'll all be nodding along - while there is no counter to the lies being told about us getting anything like the same exposure.

 

[alex3619]

aqkldsbdjshdn !!!

I second that.

Here is basically what I posted somewhere else in response (I can't find it, doh): Many neurologists and psychiatrists are still unaware that "all in your mind" is a myth. Its a Freudian myth - he did more to propagate it than anyone. In all the history of medicine such claims have been made about hundreds of diseases and conditions, from cancer to gastric ulcers. Lots of impressive papers get publish. NOT ONCE has it ever been proven.

On the flip side its been disproved again and again. Tuberculosis, epilepsy, diabetes, MS, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and so on have all been proved to be something else.

Batting score for everyone claiming its all in the mind and proving it: ZERO.

Batting score for these claims being disproved: probably hundreds of times, and the list is growing.

Hmmm ... it appears pseudoscience is alive and well in neurology not just psychiatry. Shame.

 

[alex3619]

It's difficult to be stirred to anger by something so inept, or it would be if inept books of this kind weren't still capable of doing considerable harm with their vacuous and irresponsible theorizing.

Yet much of society, especially it seems in the UK, is primed and ready to accept half baked unproven theories as long as they agree with societal prejudices. That is why its important to counter it.

 

[alex3619]

How many documented cases are there that precisely show this happening?

Oooh, oodles of claims. Trust them. [Sarcasm]

 

[alex3619]

Examining me by grossly assessing my cranial nerves hardly qualifies as comprehensive, and neurologists know that. They are the most impotent of all physicians - there’s really nothing they can do but toss drugs and harmful labels.

There is a confusion between pigeonholing someone into a diagnostic category, and actually understanding what is wrong. Wastebasket diagnoses are rife in psychiatry, and have seeped into neurology.

There are three words I would like everyone, but especially psychiatrists, to use a lot: I don't know.

I am very against psychiatrists and neurologists lying to patients as well. Telling them things they think the patient should hear, but which are not founded on sound evidence but flawed hypothesis.

 

[JamBob]

What I don't really understand is how doctors are allowed to get away with these kind of statements unchallenged when the GMC states that they are required to......

• Keep your professional knowledge and skills up to date.
• Recognise and work within the limits of your competence.

This doctor clearly doesn't have up-to-date knowledge of the latest ME/CFS research and she seems to be acting outside the limits of her competence as a specialist neurologist.

Also I am tired of the casual sexism in the medical profession. It's like many doctors still haven't learned the lessons of the wondering womb, hysteria etc. Why in the case of women is the cause of unexplained symptoms immediately assumed to be "emotional"? It's just lazy thinking.

 

[mfairma]

The sexism is particularly galling and amusing given that women are generally more predisposed to autoimmune disease and current research suggest ME might be autoimmune . . . Lazy thinking indeed

 

[Dr.Patient]

What does this moron think about these

1. Sudden onset after a flu, and struck down the next day.

2. Impaired alveolar gas exchange on a CPET.

3. When asked if they want to do anything, how patients say that they want to go out, have fun, travel, spend time with their children, etc.

Why does this dufus not understand that there are some "medical" illnesses that are just as incurable as some "psychosomatic" illnesses- so just dumping such illnesses into a psychiatric box does not relieve her of her inadequacy as a "medical" doctor?

What a bozo!

 

[worldbackwards]

The MEA respond to Aaronovitch in The Times. A fart in the breeze, but it's what we pay our subs for.
http://www.meassociation.org.uk/201...xcusable-our-letter-to-the-times-8-june-2015/

 

[Effi]

This woman is all over the place! Under the claim that ‘medicine is as much an art as a science’ (here), she completely dismisses science and just makes stuff up, based on theories of the 19th century. ‘Her diagnoses are as much philosophical as they are medical’. Seriously? Art, science, philosophy, medicine, … Please! Choose a field and stick with it!

 

[Sasha]

The MEA respond to Aaronovitch in The Times.

Excellent response.

A fart in the breeze

I'd say it was the other way around.

Thank you, @charles shepherd. I can't understand why doctors such as O'Sullivan think it's OK to just make stuff up in their heads and make the lives of hundreds of thousands of patients worse with this kind of ignorant nonsense.