Chalder and colleagues: Emotional arousal in CFS

[Hip]

Bollocks.

Actually, on looking at this study more closely, I am now starting to think that "bollocks" might be a good word to describe it, unless I am not correctly understanding the goal of the study.

It seem that the study authors are suggesting that ME/CFS patients are stoically suppressing their emotions. I don't think this is the case at all. I think many ME/CFS patients suffer from flat emotions (blunted affect), as a neurological symptom, so that these patients unfortunately cannot strongly feel and express emotions, even if they really wanted to (and I have no doubt that we all want to).

So the study authors seem to be mistaking the flat emotions / blunted affect of ME/CFS (a physical inability of the brain to respond emotionally) with a stoical desire to suppress emotions.

This is just another in a long string of terrible psychiatric "studies" that attempt to mask subjectivity with seemingly objective instruments.

I don't think there is anything wrong with watching a melodramatic or emotion-rousing film as a means to provide an objective measure of emotional responses (if that is what you are criticizing). Because that is exactly the technique I have been using on myself for many years now, and I find watching such films a very good way to measure my emotional responsiveness, and any improvements in my blunted affect symptoms.

With my normal ME/CFS flat emotions, I find it hard to engage in a film at the emotional level. I can watch and get into factual programs, but emotional material just goes over my head, because my brain does not currently respond much to emotional stimuli. I find this one of the dehumanizing aspects of ME/CFS, because so much of human life revolves around the emotions, so when your brain does not respond to them, you become a bit of an outcast to humanity.

However, when I have taken my emotion-boosting cocktail of supplements one or two hours before an emotional film, I can get a very strong emotional response, to the point that a tear-jerker or melodramatic film will have tears gushing down my cheeks for half the movie. And this is a wonderful feeling, because when you are so blocked emotionally, it's extremely cathartic to feel such powerful emotional flows in your mind, albeit for just a few hours.

Unfortunately I cannot get my emotion-boosting supplements to work consistently: if I take them on one day, they often will work (for a few hours), but then if I take the same supplements again the next day, they no longer induce an emotional response, as if I have built up a tolerance to the supplements. So my supplement cocktail only works if I just take it every now and them.

The exception to this is high dose allicin (the garlic extract), which I find consistently increases emotional responses, and so can be taken daily to boost emotions.

Maybe you misunderstood the basis of my criticisms of the study. I think you are wrong to assume we don't understand our condition. I am fully aware of the emotional dysfunctions you spell out as part of the Canadian definition, and agree that the biochemical / neurological effects are worthy of study.

Ok, well that's good, because some patients on the forum don't like to talk much about what the CCC call the neuropsychological symptoms of ME/CFS, symptoms like the disruptions to emotional functioning. Perhaps this is because they want to steer clear of all psychological aspects. But these neuropsychological symptoms are part of the burden and suffering of this disease, so we should not ignore them.

Further, as Trish pointed out, the way Hip might discuss emotional effects is very different from the intent of the authors.

Of course Wessely school researchers have generally assumed psychological causes for even the physical dysfunctions and pathophysiologies of ME/CFS, whereas they really need to do it the other way around: trying to figure out how the physical dysfunctions and pathophysiologies of ME/CFS can give rise to neuropsychological symptoms such as flat emotions.

So yes, the Wessely school certainly are biased in their etiological models of ME/CFS. And unfortunately, evidence of this bias is to be found in this paper, where it says:

Hiding one’s emotions may mean that others cannot detect the need to provide support, which could contribute to the development or maintenance of fatigue.

These researchers really need to examine what brain malfunctioning causes the flat emotions often found in ME/CFS.

 

[Woolie]

Is this the same paper?

http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...ients-more-likely-to-suppress-emotions.44661/

Damn it, @Kyla, I thought I had the scoop on something for once!