What are 'Psychological Processes"?

[alex3619]

I would call being hit by a lorry a big physiological stressor. Even PTSD arises when serious trauma, from physical to cognitive or emotional, leads to changes in the physiology of the brain, changes which are measurable. Indeed many "psychological" disorders now have substantive physiological processes being discovered. The idea that its all about thoughts is not substantiated. Ever. Just claimed. Its an open question as to how much thoughts are involved, not a done deal. Its entirely possible that it is all biology, or nearly all biology (though I consider thought to be biological function), and its looking very much like that will prove to be the case for most if not all "mental" diseases.

There have been attempts to prepare people to cope with traumatic events by preparing them psychologically. Is there any evidence this has worked? I don't recall reading any. Even if this worked, its not a solid argument for psychological causation.

There are indeed grounds to argue that some ways of thinking are better in some circumstances when particular outcomes are considered. Yet this has not ever been reliably demonstrated to have substantive impact. Much of the literature claiming that it does is under serious question, and some has been disproved.

What I do think is the case is that the brain can be sensitive to many factors, some of them neurological, some of them immunological, and some of them hormonal, and yes some are thoughts. Yet the impact of each will be determined by the structure of the system. None of them are magic. The failure of psychosomatic medicine to pursue this line of research in favour of vague waffle is in danger of discrediting the entire field, and psychiatry as well. Medical doctors not coming to grips with these issues is in danger of discrediting the entire medical profession. I do not doubt some doctors are coming to grips with these issues, but they seem to be in a minority.

 

[Wildcat]

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@Cheesus.

There are very many people with ME out there, and I'm one of them, who have found over years/decades, that stressful events/periods of stressful events played no part in the disease onset, and that stress does not make any difference whatsoever to their ME symptoms, level of illness, or pattern of the disease.

What makes their symptoms worse and level of illness worse is activity beyond what their level of illness will allow. Also environmental factors such as light (resulting in pain), noise (extreme sound sensitivity), multiple stimuli in the environment which they cannot effectively process, chemicals such as bleach in the environment. Other patients can provide other factors.

Stressful events (such as sickness benefit reassessments, for example) frequently require the person to do more to fulfil the requirements in a limited timescale, and so the person has to override their normal pacing and operate beyond their safe activity limits (or lose their income and home).

.

 

[lansbergen]

My husbands disease an death of cancer did not prevent my improvement.

Are a spouse disease and death not stressors?

 

[chipmunk1]

well if it's a big obvious stressor making you ill in most cases it is temporary and can be reduced or eliminated if your life and health is at risk.

if the stressor isn't the real problem but how you think about it - that idea is being promoted by psychologists - then it seems more likely that your brain is broken (you are getting crazy thoughts and serious emotional upset from ordinary stressors)and that should (in a perfect world) be treated by a neurologist, not a psychologist. if there is no doctor who can fix that, some might feel more in control if they are supported by a psychologist, but that doesn't mean that the cause of the illness is psychological.

 

[Cheshire]

Well I do not agree with Cheesus. The word psychology means less and less to me and I’m more and more monist.

I never saw a relation between stress and my symptoms, that doesn’t mean stress cannot be a factor for some of us.
And probably in the sens Wildcat said:

Stressful events (such as sickness benefit reassessments, for example) frequently require the person to do more to fulfil the requirements in a limited timescale, and so the person has to override their normal pacing and operate beyond their safe activity limits (or lose their income and home).

 

[Wildcat]

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As I wrote on a separate thread:

Wildcat: "Really, in Britain, the idea that 'psychological factors' [or thinking] have an impact on ME (recovery or perpetuation) is like building a residential housing estate, neglecting to install plumbing, gas, electricity, sewage services, but expecting the residents' quality of life to be really enhanced by the lovely interior decor and landscape gardening.....

........and then spending 25 years doing studies which all conclude that the landscape gardening and interior decor are the most important factors affecting quality of life on that housing estate!"

.

 

[chipmunk1]

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As I wrote on a separate thread:

Wildcat: "Really, in Britain, the idea that 'psychological factors' [or thinking] have an impact on ME (recovery or perpetuation) is like building a residential housing estate, neglecting to install plumbing, gas, electricity, sewage services, but expecting the residents' quality of life to be really enhanced by the lovely interior decor and landscape gardening.....

........and then spending 25 years doing studies which all conclude that the landscape gardening and interior decor are the most important factors affecting quality of life on that housing estate!"

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This sums it up better than anything else that i have read so far. The system is really that nutty at the moment.

The brain the most fragile organ of the body doesn't matter at all. as long as you think positive thoughts you will be fine.

 

[Sidereal]

well if it's a big obvious stressor making you ill in most cases it is temporary and can be reduced or eliminated if your life and health is at risk.

if the stressor isn't the real problem but how you think about it - that idea is being promoted by psychologists - then it seems more likely that your brain is broken (you are getting crazy thoughts and serious emotional upset from ordinary stressors)and that should (in a perfect world) be treated by a neurologist, not a psychologist. if there is no doctor who can fix that, some might feel more in control if they are supported by a psychologist, but that doesn't mean that the cause of the illness is psychological.

I agree with this so much. The preponderance of the research literature on stress and coping shows that the severity/magnitude of the stressor matters far less than the perceived level of stress, perceived level of social support, the appraisal of the stressor by the individual and the coping strategies used to deal with it. There is also a good bit of literature on minor daily hassles and how they are associated with development of "psychological" problems. It doesn't have to be something huge like war or car accident or surgery that triggers a neuroimmune disease like ME/CFS, PTSD etc.

Obviously I disagree with the psychobabblist interpretation of these studies which places the blame on the victim as being somehow psychologically inadequate and in need of cognitive restructuring/retraining. I am a monist and I don't believe that there is a ghost in the machine that just happens to have poor coping skills or negative thoughts for some unfathomable psychological reason which needs to be rectified by CBT. I think that only a broken dysfunctional brain and gut ridden with infections and immune dysfunction could perceive minor daily stressors as a big deal.

Unfortunately, neurology is still in its infancy and neurologists are one of the most arrogant medical specialties, always prone to diagnose the majority of complaints that come through their door as "functional" even though they don't know what they are talking about since so little is known about the brain. So for the time being these organic brain problems will continue to be dumped on the psychiatric scrapheap until we learn more.

 

[chipmunk1]

diagnose the majority of complaints that come through their door as "functional" even though they don't know

you would think it's functional when it's not in the brain structure(e.g you have a lesion in your brain tissue)
Functional could mean hormones, circulation, neurotransmitters, inflammation but no it can only be "psychological" in the medical world.

 

[Sidereal]

you would think it's functional when it's not in the brain structure(e.g you have a lesion in your brain tissue)
Functional could mean hormones, circulation, neurotransmitters, inflammation but no it can only be "psychological" in the medical world.

Exactly. It IS a functional problem, but not in the misused (psychological) sense of the word.

 

[alex3619]

Exactly. It IS a functional problem, but not in the misused (psychological) sense of the word.

Except for the thinner and thicker areas of the brain, including the right arcuate nucleus. Our brains are different anatomically, its just that everyone who bothered looking was looking for things found in other diseases, including obvious lesions in regions found in MS. So the function is compromised, but the days of claiming there is no physical structure abnormality are done.

 

[A.B.]

Except for the thinner and thicker areas of the brain, including the right arcuate nucleus. Our brains are different anatomically, its just that everyone who bothered looking was looking for things found in other diseases, including obvious lesions in regions found in MS. So the function is compromised, but the days of claiming there is no physical structure abnormality are done.

Can you be more specific? To what research are you referring to?

 

[alex3619]

Can you be more specific? To what research are you referring to?

The recent Stanford conference was about using MRI and qEEG to map our brains. They got similar results to the Japanese PET studies. Most of our cortex is too thin, but there are two patches that are thicker. The right arcuate nucleus is a communications pathway in the right hemisphere. It is massively enlarged. From the qEEG data we know the left side that corresponds to it, that processes language and other things, is under-performing. One hypothesis is the thickened areas are an attempt to compensate.

Being a conference we have to wait for proper publication, and ideally for independent confirmation, but there probably (as usual) wont be interest or funding for replication studies.

For those interested, much of it is now on video, there is a thread on the Stanford findings here on PR. They also covered some genomics and pathogen surveys.

 

[xchocoholic]

I don't know what to say. I completely understand and empathize with the hostility but can't see where it helped.

All I wanted to know is if we pwcs could benefit from the mind body connections we know to be true.

We've all gotten that queasy feeling in our guts or been tongue tied in stressful situations, perceived as on a first date or as real as a car accident.

But does this show itself in me/cfs ? Or other chronic illnesses ?

At the risk of sounding like a Debbie Downer, no matter how competent or likeable we were before becoming ill, I don't see how anyone who's chronically ill can escape feelings of inadequacy. Or feeling like they're a pita. We're not who we were and not who we want to be.

But does this negative self image further impair us ? And this is coming from someone who was trained via therapy to think positive thoughts. Lol. I was never taught to ignore the reality of my illness thankfully.

If so, can we be in a depressed state and not recognize it ?
I feel like I'm constantly fighting feeling depressed. Sure it seems to work but the battle is still always there.

Debbie Downer signing out. Lol. Tc .. x

 

[A.B.]

The recent Stanford conference was about using MRI and qEEG to map our brains. They got similar results to the Japanese PET studies. Most of our cortex is too thin, but there are two patches that are thicker. The right arcuate nucleus is a communications pathway in the right hemisphere. It is massively enlarged. From the qEEG data we know the left side that corresponds to it, that processes language and other things, is under-performing. One hypothesis is the thickened areas are an attempt to compensate.

Being a conference we have to wait for proper publication, and ideally for independent confirmation, but there probably (as usual) wont be interest or funding for replication studies.

For those interested, much of it is now on video, there is a thread on the Stanford findings here on PR. They also covered some genomics and pathogen surveys.

Good, I was hoping there would be more to it than the japanese PET study (which is just enough to say that low grade brain inflammation might be occurring, at least that's how I understood it).

 

[alex3619]

Hi @xchocaholic , I think its natural for someone in our position to be fighting depression. We forget that reactive depression is a natural human outcome from bad events. ME is a continuous bad event.

Positive thinking is dangerous, in my view, if it is from the position that we just have to be positive and cheerful. Hopeful thinking, positive expectancy, which are not quite the same thing, might be good coping tools.

It is hard to be happy when you feel sick and are substantially incapacitated. It is possible to be somewhat content though. I am not particular happy, but at least a few have commented that I always appear cheerful. I can also appear happy.

Our coping strategies are important for at least three reasons. The first is to cope with ME itself, for which I think some form of pacing or envelope theory is needed. The second is for quality of life ... how we experience everything. That third is for social interaction, how others experience us. That list is in descending order of priority.

I have done CBT (classic CBT, not the modern UK variety for ME) and GET. I have done meditation. I have tried affirmations. I have also tried massage, acupuncture, herbal medicine, naturopathy, etc. etc. etc., mostly in the 80s which was my try everything and see time. I was even lactovegetarian for some years, though the only milk I had was in the form of yoghurt, and at least partly as a probiotic.

In the end it was biochemistry that taught me some paths that made sense and were useful, and led me to go back to uni to finish my biochemistry degree.

I do not think being happy is very important though. I think we need to have positive focus, but its not about happiness. Its about control. We are disempowered, mere shadows of who we were. Being able to make small beneficial steps, or have such goals, is what can keep us going even if unhappy or mildly depressed. Its partly why I am into advocacy.

 

[A.B.]

@xchocoholic I would agree that nobody can escape feelings of hopelessness and despair in truly difficult situations.

I don't agree that spending time trying to be positive is a good way to deal with it. We cannot solve concrete problems on a mental level. Portraying our problems as anything other than mainly concrete obstacles is dishonest. I don't think lying to ourselves is good, even if done for a supposedly noble purpose.

In my experience, positive thinking (or any other method people use to try to be positive) only leads to self doubt, depression and disappointment when the positive thinking (unsurprisingly) doesn't magically solve the concrete problem. It is a blind end that leads nowhere. I would also call it a form of denial of reality.

I would even go as far as saying that this attitude is almost as harmful as the illness itself, but in much more subtle ways. I don't to blame patients here. I see it as a cultural thing, that is also promoted by psychology and medicine.

Much like alex I've also found it useful to focus on concrete goals, interventions, and activities to give some meaning to my life. So rather than trying to just be happier, what would actually make you happier, that is within reach?

 

[xchocoholic]

Thanks @alex3619 and @A.B.

It feels good to run this past other pwcs. Maybe positive thinking wasn't the right term ?

I was taught to appreciate what I can do however minimal that is.
I'm mostly housebound and due to OI couchbound. Things like making a meal, doing laundry, grocery shopping, etc.

And to look for what I could do that would put a smile on my face.

I saw the objective of therapy as avoiding getting depressed and it worked. It's no different from rewarding ourselves when we were healthy and leading productive lives. It's just exaggerated to include menial tasks.

I learned this via therapy 15-20? years ago and never thought about it until recently when I told a friend that I was a pita. She was upset that I see myself that way.

So if my perception is that I'm a pita, is it adding to my emotional baggage and making me feel more tired ? Are others feeling this way ?

I hang out here and do other research to try to help myself. I agree wholeheartedly that's important for us.

Tx .. x

 

[A.B.]

So if my perception is that I'm a pita, is it adding to my emotional baggage and making me feel more tired ? Are others feeling this way ?

I don't know but I suspect spending time with these questions isn't a good use of time.

 

[xchocoholic]

I don't know but I suspect spending time with these questions isn't a good use of time.

Hi @A.B.

I'm good with this since it was on my mind anyway. I understand if you don't want to continue tho.

TC .. x