So much wrong, where to start. Looks like he hasn't looked at any research since (or before) 1992. Absolute fool.
These dinosaurs are going to look extremely foolish very soon.
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Edward Shorter reviews SO'S book It's All in your Head
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So much wrong, where to start. Looks like he hasn't looked at any research since (or before) 1992. Absolute fool.
These dinosaurs are going to look extremely foolish very soon.
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http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-humani...ze-winner-2016-its-all-in-your-head-reviewed/
He isn't "demolishing 'psychosomatic illness'".
What he does is present alternative models and alternative therapeutic choices. And at the end of the piece he writes:
"...The take-home message is that the book is a great immersion in psychosomatic problems. One may quibble about some of the author’s therapeutic choices but this is for the Thursday afternoon seminar room. If you want to get a head-on feeling for the clinical experience of psychosomatic patients, read this book."
Utterly bizarre that Coyne is promoting this man.
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chipmunk1
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Maybe the idea is that psychosomatic theories are not going away anytime soon and it's better having an expert like prof. Shorter in place than someone with a more credible theory.
Many or maybe most(?) psychobabblers are not interested in doing follow ups(Reality checks). They live in a fantasy world and think they understand the problem and don't need to question their own ideas.
There are many cases where they proclaim their patient was permanently cured despite not ever seeing them again.
They simply assume they cured them because their treatment is so wonderful and the patients don't come back.
Many or maybe most(?) psychobabblers are not interested in doing follow ups(Reality checks). They live in a fantasy world and think they understand the problem and don't need to question their own ideas.
There are many cases where they proclaim their patient was permanently cured despite not ever seeing them again.
They simply assume they cured them because their treatment is so wonderful and the patients don't come back.
JaimeS
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So... much... misogyny. Apparently ONLY women get this "Madame, it's all in your head." And pointing out that it's a "women's lobby". So creepy and weird.
Actually discussed this in the NIH RFI -- patients stop going to their doctors because they cannot receive adequate care from them. This does not mean that they are now well. It creates this impression that many people spontaneously improve for good (which studies show to be about 5% in adults with ME), and that the illness is rare... when the truth is, we simply stop showing up. Unger (2016) found that only 50% of PWME continue going to their physician after diagnosis.
chipmunk1
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I don't have Twitter at the moment but I had noticed that they were both following some of the same accounts(psych related), some of them rather obscure. Maybe they have personally met once or somehow interacted in the past?
Coyne is a loose cannon and a double edged sword for the M.E cause. This was established by his inexplicable outburst a few months back. Therefore this unfortunately doesnt suprise me.
Hip
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I don't really see anything double-edged about Coyne's thrust forward, cutting through the empirically unsubstantiated psychobabble of psychosomatic views of ME/CFS and other functional diseases like IBS. I am not aware of anything he has done which is detrimental to this thrust. He may have disliked the way the ME/CFS community so fiercely attacked Brian Walitt, but that's not in itself detrimental to the overall thrust.
Obviously James Coyne thinks Shorter has got it wrong about ME/CFS (hence "ignore what he says about mecfs").
But Coyne thinks that Shorter has made some good points regarding demolishing psychosomatic illness; I'd like to know which specific points he is referring to. Does anyone here know?
The field of psychology as a whole sometimes reminds me of a Robert Heinline character named Igli. Igli was a nasty troll like character that had neither Mother nor Father - we knew this since he had no navel. Because he had no Mother or Father, he was not a legitimate being, but still he managed to terrorize people.
Igli could not be defeated except by sticking his feet into his own oversized mouth and pushing...pushing first his feet, and then his ankles and then knees and so forth deeper into his mouth and down into his stomach, pushing and rolling him into an ever diminishing creature - essentially forcing him to consume himself until nothing remained.
Igli could not be defeated except by sticking his feet into his own oversized mouth and pushing...pushing first his feet, and then his ankles and then knees and so forth deeper into his mouth and down into his stomach, pushing and rolling him into an ever diminishing creature - essentially forcing him to consume himself until nothing remained.
The 'double edged' was referring to his apparent persona, which one minute is ally, the next is burning every bridge he ever made with the community and making rediculous threats.
It was highly detrimental to the relationship he had built with the community for many people, nothing to do with the 'thrust'. Him 'disliking' the Walitt issue was okay, his reaction and conduct was absolutely not.
My point was Coyne has a habit of doing suprising things, so promoting this, despite the rediculous stance on M.E doesnt suprise me.
Its great he ripped PACE a new one, but I have no idea what to expect from him anymore. I believe him to be a rather confused fellow.
I also find it rather odd he agrees with many of the comments, and then says 'ignore what he says about me/cfs' which is fundamental and relevant to the other comments.
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Hip
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I don't know that much about him, but I don't think Coyne's motivations are about building a relationship with the ME/CFS community, or being an ally of the ME/CFS community. I don't think he has a great deal of interest in such touchy-feely activities.
I suspect his motivations in this are much more about uncovering bad science, promoting scientific integrity, and trying to ensure medical science follows the proper scientific method (which means theories must be reality checked against empirical fact).
I suspect his motivations in this are much more about uncovering bad science, promoting scientific integrity, and trying to ensure medical science follows the proper scientific method (which means theories must be reality checked against empirical fact).
Well he engages with the M.E community, and was urging us to elect a 'leader' not so long ago, so he does indeed get involved. If not in a touchy feely way.
I agree, but in that case, id expect him to be rather hard on the comments by Shorter on M.E. Its confusing.
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Dx Revision Watch
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Whatever Coyne's position on CFS, ME is, he evidently felt no necessity to place caveats on his blog which promoted "From Paralysis to Fatigue". And he made no comment on the references to CFS, ME within the BMJ Blog commentary until he was challenged over its content.
From the context of the Tweet, he appears to be referring specifically to the Shorter BMJ Blog commentary. But as far as I am aware, he has not set out what he considers these "good points" are.
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By promoting Shorter?
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I've never seen anything that Shorter has written that has any real evidence or reasonableness, so why bother defending him?
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Yes. He's all over the place.
Hip
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It's not unusual for someone who hits completely the wrong note in the main, as Shorter clearly does, to also sometimes make apt or insightful comments. Shorter does make some good points in his BMJ Blog criticizing the O’Sullivan's view that stress and emotions cause functional diseases. For example:
However, having criticized O’Sullivan views, he then merely argues for his own psychobabble theory on functional disease etiology, based on the idea that the symptoms of functional diseases are created by a sort of hypnotic suggestibility of people: that is, he thinks functional patients are expressing symptoms that are sanctioned by contemporary culture, or expressing symptoms that are fashionable among the upper-middle classes.
In fact, given a choice of the two views, I think O’Sullivan's rather than Shorter's may on rare occasions hold a little bit of water, because I suspect that there may be rare cases of ME/CFS that although underpinned by viral infection, and although an organic disease, may involve some learnt stress response that impedes the immune response and thus viral clearance. But these I think will be rare cases.
But Shorter's idea that functional diseases are memes propagated by the culture is beyond the pale of scientific common sense.
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JaimeS
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And, just as in a meme, you have condensed Shorter's idea down to its most vital essence:
Disease as meme.
Ugggghhh these ppl
Hip
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Perhaps Shorter should have gone into Sci-Fi writing: terrible diseases spreading as memes would make a great Sci-Fi plot.
But as a serious scientific theory, his disease as a meme idea looks totally ridiculous.
I think he's failing to vet these people, and blindly assuming that the authority figure/"expert" is a nice guy, etc. Then patients get upset about Coyne's promotion of someone horrible on social media, and there might be a lot of "quack"-type terminology thrown around without an explanation of why they are a quack. Coyne then seems to assume there is no good explanation and patients are just calling names for fun. Coyne then explodes and uses some of the nasty terminology which he's told us we should be fighting.
If Coyne took two minutes to ask any of his scientifically-minded ME contacts about these quacks, he could get an in-depth explanation of their prior bullshit with direct quotations and citations to said bullshit.
Basically, there's a lot he doesn't know about the ME playing field, but he's jumping in anyhow, and offending people. And then he won't apologize, even when he goes totally off the deep end for a bit. But maybe he'll learn, eventually.
So my suggestion is to 1) provide a quotation and/or citation in response to Coyne or any other ally promoting a psychobabbler and avoid shorthand terminology on public platforms which is offensive to some people. 2) Ignore Coyne while he has a fit. 3) Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - continue to support Coyne's more constructive efforts.
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Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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I can't agree with turning a blind eye to abusive behaviour, whether carried out on public platforms like Facebook or via PM or email. It's tantamount to sanctioning.
Has the “Coyne of the Realm” been devalued?
Posted on February 29, 2016
By Jeannette Burmeister
Standing Up to Coyne and Against Unfair Treatment of ME Advocates
Posted on March 4, 2016
By Edward Burmeister
Even Coyne has said:
Source: twitter.com/statuses/704660250700455936 5:31 AM - 01 Mar 2016 Screenshot 03.01.16
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