G
Gerwyn
Guest
Hi Gerwyn
My problem with the 'childhood truama causing the development of CFS' is firstly, the vague definition of 'childhood truama'. The Heim et al papers, for example, are so vague, that ANY distressing childhood experience can be classed as 'trauma', and how many people (including the healthy) escape childhood without distress? Again - retrospective reporting of people under stress NOW can lead to introspection not present so much in the so-called 'unstressed'.
Secondly, whatever experiences affect the development of MIND- exactly HOW do they lead to a specific, serious Central Nervous System and other physiological dysfunction from an infection? I contend this has not ever been verified or even tested properly, and possibly never will.
If 'stress' is an 'enabler', it would be occurring for all other disease- because ME/CFS sufferers are not the only people to have had 'stress' in their lives! But with ME/CFS there is a special pleading on sufferers are somehow more 'stressed' and that this CAUSES the illness.
Plus- the emphasis on psychological distress as THE putative 'stressor' ignores that human (and other animal) bodies experience all sorts of physical stress on them.
On top of that - 'stress' theory is now being replaced with 'Negative Affectivity' stories, where people's negative personalities and psychological 'maladaptive' responses to 'stress' are postulated as causing 'CFS'. Kerr's 'stress index' utilised that assumptions as well as 'stress'. There are so many flaws and problems in those theories.
And lastly - even with all these problems, on top of them, childhood trauma/stress/cfs papers have terribly weak correlations at best, and so are massively subject to the logical fallacy of correlation equals causation. PLUS - the cohorts are CDC defined! Just to add another problem into the mix...
Stress as a causative is out.My point is that stress depresses the immune system thus potentially allowing our friend to enter undetected or virtually so.Its sequence similarity to Human DNA is astonishing.The formation of the mind is now pretty well accepted in that it is built on the resonance properties of the effective components of our earliest relationships and how they became represented.
This will effect cognitive and effective development if this relationship is" sub optimal".It will not have any effect at all as far as I know on susceptibility to infection other than possibly a slightly compromised immune system if anxiety is excessive
.We are still left with the virus as causative
.Trauma as defined in attachment literature can lead to a kind of attachment pattern that will show up in attachment interviews.So the theory that trauma leads to the somataform ME theory could actually be disproved to a certain level of probability.
I note that our psycho bretheren have never dared to attempt this .They have tried anxious attachment styles etc not related to trauma and not the disorganised ones which are.I suspect that they are afraid of what they will find.