worldbackwards
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How Max Pemberton tried to terrorise us, by the weak and vulnerable.
Has a ring to it.
Has a ring to it.
-
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How the ME zealots tried to terrorise me Dr Max Pemberton
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Still only three Comments showing.
Still only three Comments showing.
I think he's trying to post it publicly and bury it at the same time. Then he can get away with leaving it up and him or some other quack can cite it as "proof" that we've escalated to letter bombing, or whatever the hell he's saying.
It needs to come down, especially the over-the-top accusations which aren't clearly meant to be exaggerations rather than reality.
It needs to come down, especially the over-the-top accusations which aren't clearly meant to be exaggerations rather than reality.
In many ways, it’s similar to how sufferers of chronic Lyme disease, which I wrote about recently, feel affronted at the suggestion that their illness is psychological in origin.
Either they have CLD or they don't. Pemberton needs to write sentences that make sense. Perhaps he means people who claim to have CLD. perhaps he means people who have shown initiative, gone to Germany, ordered a decent test from the States etc, in which he does not believe. Perhaps more likely he wishes to conflate the lot. One brush to tar all, just as we are tarred as "exercise avoidant, ill because we think we are ill", by the advicates of CBT/GET.
But they aren’t being belittled. In fact, I’ve never met a doctor who doesn’t accept that the symptoms of ME/CFS are incredibly debilitating.
MP hasn't met the doctors I met for years, then. "Why don't you get on with your life...." Thankfully many are now equally helpless but more ready to admit it. And note, that the symptoms are serious, but what about the organic pathologies - not even serious enough to investigate......Same old semantic games.
It’s simply that the current medical explanation of the causes isn’t to the liking of a minority of sufferers.
A current medical opinion rather than the expanation.
To me, this says much about how society views mental illness: that it’s not as real as physical illness, not worthy of the same compassion or concern, and that people who have it just need to pull their socks up.
As far as I know the "medical explanation" to which P alludes is that PHYSICAL deconditioning is a major part, the symptoms are PHYSICAL and the therapy involves a PHYSICAL therarpy i.e.GET, so why the leap to a discussion of mental illness?
In fact, the majority of those with ME are very open to psychological solutions. That’s why studies like this can get large numbers of participants.
How can a therapy relying substantially on GET be described as "psychological"? CBT/GET is P's advocated "solution" but CBT /GET is only partially psychological. The psychological component is not advocated as a solution apart from GET. What is he talking about? More obfuscation and/or superficiality.
But what’s worst of all is that they pursue people who are desperate to support them. One leading researcher, Professor Simon Wessely, has now given up because of the abuse he received.
Desperation does not equate to competence.
Yet Sir Simon has told me that the very reason he began his work was because, as a young doctor, he saw that sufferers were being turned away by neurologists who could find no physical basis for their problems.
Nor has Simon. And CBT GET theories ain't it.
He felt they were being let down, wanted to help and developed the treatment programme now endorsed by the Oxford study.
And Julia Newton in Newcastle has shown that many are being misdiagnosed anyway rendering the programme irrelevant to many labelled as CFS, with no testing. And the misdiagnosis has arisen in a context where "don't test them, you'll convince them they are ill" has been a guiding principle - and who helped develop that approach?
ME activists will claim that the condition’s caused by anything rather than the mind — viruses, the immune system, toxic chemicals . They’ll seek a cure from any other doctor, but not a psychiatrist.
Deconditioning is not a mental condition.Why, again. the leap from physical GET to "mental"? Max is a little confused unless there is rather more to the "explanation" than is told to the patients. Why is deconditioning "allowed" as a physical cause but viruses etc. not and why should a psychiatrist rather than exercise physiologists, sports therapist be in charge? Just more contradictory waffle.
And it’s just so misguided.
Why see a psychiatrist for deconditioning?
Imagine you’ve gone to the GP with a rash, asking to be referred to a dermatologist. But the GP explains that actually you have psoriatic arthritis — a joint problem that causes rashes — so the best person to see isn’t a skin doctor but a joint doctor.
You wouldn’t threaten to letter-bomb the GP, would you? You’d say thank you very much; what a relief I’m going to see the right doctor.
Why see a psychiatrist for deconditioning?
And that’s all that’s being suggested with ME. So why the hatred?
It's more contempt , Max.
Either they have CLD or they don't. Pemberton needs to write sentences that make sense. Perhaps he means people who claim to have CLD. perhaps he means people who have shown initiative, gone to Germany, ordered a decent test from the States etc, in which he does not believe. Perhaps more likely he wishes to conflate the lot. One brush to tar all, just as we are tarred as "exercise avoidant, ill because we think we are ill", by the advicates of CBT/GET.
But they aren’t being belittled. In fact, I’ve never met a doctor who doesn’t accept that the symptoms of ME/CFS are incredibly debilitating.
MP hasn't met the doctors I met for years, then. "Why don't you get on with your life...." Thankfully many are now equally helpless but more ready to admit it. And note, that the symptoms are serious, but what about the organic pathologies - not even serious enough to investigate......Same old semantic games.
It’s simply that the current medical explanation of the causes isn’t to the liking of a minority of sufferers.
A current medical opinion rather than the expanation.
To me, this says much about how society views mental illness: that it’s not as real as physical illness, not worthy of the same compassion or concern, and that people who have it just need to pull their socks up.
As far as I know the "medical explanation" to which P alludes is that PHYSICAL deconditioning is a major part, the symptoms are PHYSICAL and the therapy involves a PHYSICAL therarpy i.e.GET, so why the leap to a discussion of mental illness?
In fact, the majority of those with ME are very open to psychological solutions. That’s why studies like this can get large numbers of participants.
How can a therapy relying substantially on GET be described as "psychological"? CBT/GET is P's advocated "solution" but CBT /GET is only partially psychological. The psychological component is not advocated as a solution apart from GET. What is he talking about? More obfuscation and/or superficiality.
But what’s worst of all is that they pursue people who are desperate to support them. One leading researcher, Professor Simon Wessely, has now given up because of the abuse he received.
Desperation does not equate to competence.
Yet Sir Simon has told me that the very reason he began his work was because, as a young doctor, he saw that sufferers were being turned away by neurologists who could find no physical basis for their problems.
Nor has Simon. And CBT GET theories ain't it.
He felt they were being let down, wanted to help and developed the treatment programme now endorsed by the Oxford study.
And Julia Newton in Newcastle has shown that many are being misdiagnosed anyway rendering the programme irrelevant to many labelled as CFS, with no testing. And the misdiagnosis has arisen in a context where "don't test them, you'll convince them they are ill" has been a guiding principle - and who helped develop that approach?
ME activists will claim that the condition’s caused by anything rather than the mind — viruses, the immune system, toxic chemicals . They’ll seek a cure from any other doctor, but not a psychiatrist.
Deconditioning is not a mental condition.Why, again. the leap from physical GET to "mental"? Max is a little confused unless there is rather more to the "explanation" than is told to the patients. Why is deconditioning "allowed" as a physical cause but viruses etc. not and why should a psychiatrist rather than exercise physiologists, sports therapist be in charge? Just more contradictory waffle.
And it’s just so misguided.
Why see a psychiatrist for deconditioning?
Imagine you’ve gone to the GP with a rash, asking to be referred to a dermatologist. But the GP explains that actually you have psoriatic arthritis — a joint problem that causes rashes — so the best person to see isn’t a skin doctor but a joint doctor.
You wouldn’t threaten to letter-bomb the GP, would you? You’d say thank you very much; what a relief I’m going to see the right doctor.
Why see a psychiatrist for deconditioning?
And that’s all that’s being suggested with ME. So why the hatred?
It's more contempt , Max.
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biophile
Places I'd rather be.
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- 8,977
If there are ME zealots, does this mean Pemberton et al are the Roman invaders?
The beast?
As to the aspersion that CBT/GET critics (and we are not all zealots and stalkers - more tarring with one brush) are part of a widely held societal view of mental illness, which holds that sufferers of such should just pull their socks up:-
1) Many of us have suffered great mental distress due to our physical illness. Circumstantial depression, which is in many cases as serious as endogenous, must be very common among us.
2) Many of us suffering from neurological inflammation or other immune activation have organically based encephalopathic mental symptoms in association with the biology of our illness. This we have in common with many chronic immune activated illnesses whether of infective or autoimmune origin. Read all about these on the web, Max.
3) Certain symptoms commonly found in ME/CFS (and fibro) are mental e.g. memory problems, concentration problems etc. Who disputes this? - apart from a few patients who sadly,like MP, conflate mental with psychogenic, though they do not at the same time speak/write for money from the cathedra of psychiatric authority and are often very ill.
We do not need a lecture on attitudes to mental illness. Many of us know this beast from within.
Further does not CBT/GET represent one of the biggest "pull your socks up" quackeries of our age? "Increase your activity levels because your low activity increases your limitations, and as to immune factors, toxins, gut dysbiosis etc. that will just make you think you are ill which will limit you....." This is pull your socks up par excellence, to borrow a phrase. And if you don't buy our "explanation" you are being challenging and lo and behold within a few sessions you will no longer be Mickey Sharpe's "undeserving" sick. i.e the victims of an illness only the messiahs of CBT/GET can treat, but rather "deserving" sick or even ME zealots. The you can go somewhere else..... but the NHS ain't paying.......
And what of MP's own views of mental illness in as far as they are represented here? Mental illness is widely recognised to have psychological/psychogenic and organic aspects and therapies - psychological or pharmaceutical - are chosen according to condition and with care. Father Ted would say "This really is basic stuff, Max (FatherDouga?)l".
Moreover modern psychiatry - ironically bishop Simon approves - is more and more concerned with the immune aspects of mental illness, yet Max tells us that we, with our poorly understood "mental" illness should reject immune based considerations a priori, presumably also giving short shrift to any of his psychiatric colleagues who are actually interested in biology. Bit odd that, eh? Pemberton, it appears, is not even a serious up to date psychiatrist. Should have been a journo, just like Simon could have been.. Oh in fact he is.
How dare MP condemn us for lack of appreciation of psychiatric illness, when he himself is apparently so far behind the curve?
And, given that mental illness is organic and seriously real, and not "merely" psychological, why is our "mental" illness spoken of as "psychological"?
The answer is that MP and co. don't really think we have major deconditioning at all - any more than they believe in viruses etc, as causal. They believe - allowing for the fact that they may actually be as confused as they seem - but as far as their actions and confused mutterings about us go, they must believe that we really have some kind of fear syndrome, with physical symptoms, but basically fear based , possibly causing some central sensitisation with physical consequences, and needing anti fear therapy- CBT "don't be afraid of exercise" and GET "feel the fear and do it anyway". It's not really about deconditioning at all.
And that is why we "should" go to a psychiatrist for graded exercise, that is why our illness/es marked as they are by physical symptoms can be labelled psychological, and that is why mental as applied to us can largely bypass brain biochemistry and completely ignore immunology and be reduced to psychogenic Why not just be honest about it, Max, instead of portraying us anti psychiatry bigots? You don't even offer us good psychiatry.
Let;'s remember too that MP and co. are the ones who repeat, rightly in my opinion (I am not an anti psychiatry zealot), that poor mental health can make one physically ill, and yet they promote a therapy that is based on falsehood and on bad medicine with poor results, is bad psychiatry and thus, by their own logic, must be bad for our physical health too. They don't even give us good psychiatry.
Oh and the aspersions about us being anti mental health make us physically sick as well.
Sorry for the above rant and original lack of paragraphs. MP's drivel drives me insane, ad I admit this insanity is psycho-circumstantial and he and his ilk are the cause.
The final grand irony is that Simon is now uttering positive things about Rituximab. Presumably Pemberton will be attacking him any day soon - for contempt of "mental" illness.
1) Many of us have suffered great mental distress due to our physical illness. Circumstantial depression, which is in many cases as serious as endogenous, must be very common among us.
2) Many of us suffering from neurological inflammation or other immune activation have organically based encephalopathic mental symptoms in association with the biology of our illness. This we have in common with many chronic immune activated illnesses whether of infective or autoimmune origin. Read all about these on the web, Max.
3) Certain symptoms commonly found in ME/CFS (and fibro) are mental e.g. memory problems, concentration problems etc. Who disputes this? - apart from a few patients who sadly,like MP, conflate mental with psychogenic, though they do not at the same time speak/write for money from the cathedra of psychiatric authority and are often very ill.
We do not need a lecture on attitudes to mental illness. Many of us know this beast from within.
Further does not CBT/GET represent one of the biggest "pull your socks up" quackeries of our age? "Increase your activity levels because your low activity increases your limitations, and as to immune factors, toxins, gut dysbiosis etc. that will just make you think you are ill which will limit you....." This is pull your socks up par excellence, to borrow a phrase. And if you don't buy our "explanation" you are being challenging and lo and behold within a few sessions you will no longer be Mickey Sharpe's "undeserving" sick. i.e the victims of an illness only the messiahs of CBT/GET can treat, but rather "deserving" sick or even ME zealots. The you can go somewhere else..... but the NHS ain't paying.......
And what of MP's own views of mental illness in as far as they are represented here? Mental illness is widely recognised to have psychological/psychogenic and organic aspects and therapies - psychological or pharmaceutical - are chosen according to condition and with care. Father Ted would say "This really is basic stuff, Max (FatherDouga?)l".
Moreover modern psychiatry - ironically bishop Simon approves - is more and more concerned with the immune aspects of mental illness, yet Max tells us that we, with our poorly understood "mental" illness should reject immune based considerations a priori, presumably also giving short shrift to any of his psychiatric colleagues who are actually interested in biology. Bit odd that, eh? Pemberton, it appears, is not even a serious up to date psychiatrist. Should have been a journo, just like Simon could have been.. Oh in fact he is.
How dare MP condemn us for lack of appreciation of psychiatric illness, when he himself is apparently so far behind the curve?
And, given that mental illness is organic and seriously real, and not "merely" psychological, why is our "mental" illness spoken of as "psychological"?
The answer is that MP and co. don't really think we have major deconditioning at all - any more than they believe in viruses etc, as causal. They believe - allowing for the fact that they may actually be as confused as they seem - but as far as their actions and confused mutterings about us go, they must believe that we really have some kind of fear syndrome, with physical symptoms, but basically fear based , possibly causing some central sensitisation with physical consequences, and needing anti fear therapy- CBT "don't be afraid of exercise" and GET "feel the fear and do it anyway". It's not really about deconditioning at all.
And that is why we "should" go to a psychiatrist for graded exercise, that is why our illness/es marked as they are by physical symptoms can be labelled psychological, and that is why mental as applied to us can largely bypass brain biochemistry and completely ignore immunology and be reduced to psychogenic Why not just be honest about it, Max, instead of portraying us anti psychiatry bigots? You don't even offer us good psychiatry.
Let;'s remember too that MP and co. are the ones who repeat, rightly in my opinion (I am not an anti psychiatry zealot), that poor mental health can make one physically ill, and yet they promote a therapy that is based on falsehood and on bad medicine with poor results, is bad psychiatry and thus, by their own logic, must be bad for our physical health too. They don't even give us good psychiatry.
Oh and the aspersions about us being anti mental health make us physically sick as well.
Sorry for the above rant and original lack of paragraphs. MP's drivel drives me insane, ad I admit this insanity is psycho-circumstantial and he and his ilk are the cause.
The final grand irony is that Simon is now uttering positive things about Rituximab. Presumably Pemberton will be attacking him any day soon - for contempt of "mental" illness.
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That's ironic, as they obviously fear illness and ill people.
I've never understood why bullying is an appropriate treatment for mentally ill people.
CFS_for_19_years
Hoarder of biscuits
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@Richie, please use more paragraph breaks and white space in your post from three hours ago. A lot of us can't read walls of text. Thanks for posting.
alex3619
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[ sarcasm] Only two? (Puts fingers up and starts counting ...)
alex3619
Senior Member
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Has anyone counted how many there are?