Pain may be in the mind

Cheshire

Cheshire

Senior Member
Messages
1,129
Our dearest friend Simon is back!
Pain may be in the mind
Wessely_91166595_187232c.jpg

Patients with unexplained pains should be seen by a mental health expert alongside a physical specialist because they are just as likely to have a psychiatric disorder, the new head of Britain’s psychiatrists says.

Trials are under way of a system that aims to tackle the “implicit hierarchy of diagnoses” in a medical profession still prejudiced against mental health, Professor Sir Simon Wessely said.
Click to expand...

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/news/article4126073.ece

UnfortunatelyI can't read the whole article, but the beguining is promising!
 
Min

Min

Messages
1,387
Location
UK
In an interview with The Times, the incoming president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Sir Simon Wessely, has launched a defence of psychiatry, claiming that the rise in antidepressant and stimulant prescriptions for children has been caused by pushy middle-class parents, teachers and pressure groups. “Medicalisation is not often done by doctors,” he claims. “In areas that are more accessible to public debate it’s almost the other way around. Now we see a huge rise in support groups, we see pressure brought to bear to bring in labels… You get obvious pressure from parents… It’s psychiatry which is against the medicalisation of normality.”

Furthermore Professor Wessely said it was nonsense to say that antidepressants did not work. “It’s the same with Ritalin. It’s probably over-prescribed, but it’s also under-prescribed because we don’t have good enough [child and adolescence mental health] services,” he said. Wessely also claims that other doctors look down on psychiatry because “we don’t have very big machines that buzz”
Click to expand...
 
MeSci

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,232
Location
Cornwall, UK
Min said:
Wessely also claims that other doctors look down on psychiatry because “we don’t have very big machines that buzz”
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Or do they look down on it because it is based on little or no evidence?

That said, the evidence for physically-based treatments is not as good as most people think. If anyone wants to see how regularly standard physical treatments are found to be ineffective, I recommend a free sub to Physician's First Watch. It gives concise summaries of the latest evidence, and is honest about disagreements and uncertainties.
 
I

Iquitos

Senior Member
Messages
513
Location
Colorado
"prejudiced against mental health"???

No, just resistant to quacks that have been bought off by insurance companies like UNUM. UNUM must have given him a grant to go after those who have seen the quackery of so much of "mental health" quacktioners. Or maybe they don't think they've gotten their money's worth from him lately, for the money they've already paid him.
 
*GG*

*GG*

senior member
Messages
6,397
Location
Concord, NH
Iquitos said:
"prejudiced against mental health"???

No, just resistant to quacks that have been bought off by insurance companies like UNUM. UNUM must have given him a grant to go after those who have seen the quackery of so much of "mental health" quacktioners. Or maybe they don't think they've gotten their money's worth from him lately, for the money they've already paid him.
Click to expand...

Interesting you say this. Because if you have a mental illness insurance companies in the U.S. only have to pay you long term disability (LTD) for 2 years, and then you are on your own. So it seems that insurance companies DO have an incentive to keep psychological diagnoses from being greatly harmed!

GG
 
MeSci

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,232
Location
Cornwall, UK
adreno said:
Or this scene from Monty Python:

Monty Python - Hospital Sketch:
Click to expand...

and that reminds me of a friend whose insistence that she was in labour was repeatedly dismissed, with the consequence that she almost gave birth on the hospital floor. I guess the staff thought that the pain was all in her mind...

and of course pain is partly in the mind - the brain interprets the nociceptive signals - as any neurologist should know. And maybe there are times when a short circuit is produced, or pain signals appear to come from amputated limbs, presumably indicating that the brain is receiving confusing signals, perhaps from another part of the body.

But I think that is a far cry from what SW is claiming.
 
Last edited:
I

Iquitos

Senior Member
Messages
513
Location
Colorado
ggingues said:
Interesting you say this. Because if you have a mental illness insurance companies in the U.S. only have to pay you long term disability (LTD) for 2 years, and then you are on your own. So it seems that insurance companies DO have an incentive to keep psychological diagnoses from being greatly harmed!

GG
Click to expand...
@ggingues Yes, that's part of my point. UNUM and other disability insurance companies would prefer to pay for mental disabilities rather than physical ones since that limits their payout to two years and cheap antidepressants & talk "therapy" rather than the lifetime disability most of us with ME experience.

And it's not just in the US. UNUM is big in UK.
 
Tired of being sick

Tired of being sick

Senior Member
Messages
565
Location
Western PA USA
Cheshire said:
Our dearest friend Simon is back!


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/news/article4126073.ece

UnfortunatelyI can't read the whole article, but the beguining is promising!
Click to expand...


Let me see here

Oh I know what I can do.

Let me punch him in his face
then
I will try to convince him that it never happened
and
If I can't steer his psyche to my version of outcome
well then
I can just write him off as insane
then
ship him off to Ignoreville
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back