Psychology Today Opinion piece regarding the IOM release

[msf]

Dx, it was in another of my posts, but it wasn't really relevant to the discussion - I just couldn't stop myself blurting out when I saw all the PubMed articles in his Shorter's name.

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

Dx, it was in another of my posts, but it wasn't really relevant to the discussion - I just couldn't stop myself blurting out when I saw all the PubMed articles in his Shorter's name.

OK, I understand.

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_Today

Used to be owned and managed by the other APA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychological_Association

 

[Esther12]

Although this person has deeply offensive views, I'm of the opinion that he's a nobody. There are always going to be uninformed idiots spouting out offensive nonsense in relation to any subject. This particular 'nobody' has a position of authority, and complaints can be made. Our biggest foes are much cleverer than him, and would never publish anything so blatantly offensive. I think his rantings are helpful for us to clearly demonstrate the prejudice/abuse that we have to put up with. Perhaps this is an example of an academic 'extremist' that we can use to deflect the frequent claims re patient 'extremists'?

I'm afraid that I often see Shorter cited by a certain sort.

I agree that it's helpful for us to have someone being so forthright though.

 

[Sidereal]

@Bob, sadly Shorter is not a nobody. He's probably the most prominent historian of psychiatry currently.

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

Can someone confirm, please, whether Shorter has closed the comments for "Part II" after accruing 37 comments?

A comment box is displaying for me for other posts on his blog but not for "Part II".

I note also that he has not responded to any of his comments, either via his blog or Twitter.

So he lobs grenades, then ducks.

Nor has he answered a request to explain the absence of the initial (since pulled) post.

 

[Bob]

I didn't know anything about Shorter, and had assumed that he was an isolated academic, headed for retirement, living out the remainder of his career in a dusty old study in a forgotten corner of a university department. I've been informed that's not the case, but he is influential. I struggle to understand how anyone can take his rantings seriously, but that's psychiatry for you. I'm not familiar with the field of psychiatry beyond the CFS psych-lobby in the UK. I wish I still wasn't familiar with Shorter.

 

[Joss]

Freud didn't apologize instead he suggested that the operation had been done properly and the bleeding had been entirely psychosomatic produced by her subconscious desires because she had been in love with him.

Not really a relevant comment I know but if that is true it's utterly priceless.
Where are all those 'I Heart Freud' stickers. I can always handcraft one in my own blood of course.

Yes - it is true - at least according to Masson's book which relied heavily on letters between Freud and his best mate Fliess. This particular response lead to the creation of the Oedipal Theory which replace his original concept that childhood 'seduction' was causative for hysteria.

Of course ME/CFS do not and never have presented as 'hysteria' so I am never sure why it continually gets mentioned. If anything it looks more like what was called 'Neurasthenia'. Personally I believe that many Victorian men and women who had 'Neurasthenia' may have had a physical disorder that is very like or or is identical with ME/CFS. There are example of many writers that spent their adult lives confined to bed with severe malaise etc.

Personally I think there is a lot in Freud in general that is OK and many neurologists are going back and looking at him again along with David Hume (a philosopher). It's just the Oedipal stuff and the way his theories have been used to back up a witless and unprovable notion of somatisation in the modern age when people should know better.

Charcot and Freud were, in fact, quite focused on neurology as the basis for illnesses and I think they would have moved forward with the technology.

 

[Research 1st]

It's frustrating to see some medical historians think that ME CFS patients are worth critiquing with such venom, but ignore them if possible as stress from people so silly isn't worth the relapse.

Their views are so outdated, the joke is on them.

 

[Wildcat]

.
@Bob - I posted the material about Elaine Showalter (which I hope you have read) because she and Shorter cross reference each other and reinforce each others theories and publications. They have both been highly influential in portraying ME as not only psychosomatic, but have put it into a supposed historical continuum of 'hysterical diseases', or 'hysterical plagues' as Showalter puts it.

And ridiculous as they sound, it is not the case that no one takes them seriously. Showalter got massive and sustained publicity for the preposterous theories from her book 'Hystories'.

Members of the British intelligentsia went public in the media and net to agree with Showalter and to disparage ME patients in terrible ways. They sounded beside themselves with contempt for ME sufferers.
The words "Elaine Showalter says ..... " were everywhere. Then she played the victim, portrayed the patients as nasty and threatening, herself as "brave", and played the media to her own advantage yet again, and got even more publicity, and more sympathy.

Does that sound familiar?

Do you detect a copycat recurrence of Showalter's tactics in 2011/12 .....
.

 

[Joss]

Can someone confirm, please, whether Shorter has closed the comments for "Part II" after accruing 37 comments?

A comment box is displaying for me for other posts on his blog but not for "Part II".

I note also that he has not responded to any of his comments, either via his blog or Twitter.

So he lobs grenades, then ducks.

Nor has he answered a request to explain the absence of the initial (since pulled) post.

I can't see one - even last night it was impossible to comment because the box you typed confirmation letters in to kept coming and going.

It also kept referring me to a 'spam' reporting site so it may be that it just collapsed?

Or maybe he took it down?

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

I can't see one - even last night it was impossible to comment because the box you typed confirmation letters in to kept coming and going.

It also kept referring me to a 'spam' reporting site so it may be that it just collapsed?

Or maybe he took it down?

Thanks for looking, Joss.

I can see a comment box on his other posts.


BTW:

References for intention not to retain Neurasthenia for ICD-11
January 13, 2015

http://wp.me/pKrrB-439

 

[Sidereal]

Yes - it is true - at least according to Masson's book which relied heavily on letters between Freud and his best mate Fliess. This particular response lead to the creation of the Oedipal Theory which replace his original concept that childhood 'seduction' was causative for hysteria.

Of course ME/CFS do not and never have presented as 'hysteria' so I am never sure why it continually gets mentioned. If anything it looks more like what was called 'Neurasthenia'. Personally I believe that many Victorian men and women who had 'Neurasthenia' may have had a physical disorder that is very like or or is identical with ME/CFS. There are example of many writers that spent their adult lives confined to bed with severe malaise etc.

Personally I think there is a lot in Freud in general that is OK and many neurologists are going back and looking at him again along with David Hume (a philosopher). It's just the Oedipal stuff and the way his theories have been used to back up a witless and unprovable notion of somatisation in the modern age when people should know better.

Charcot and Freud were, in fact, quite focused on neurology as the basis for illnesses and I think they would have moved forward with the technology.

(Mass) hysteria is often mentioned in the context of apparent cluster outbreaks of ME in the 20th century, especially due to female preponderance. Neurasthenia was believed to strike men more often, those engaged in intellectual work rather than manual. Ultimately both are viewed as manifestations of subconscious conversion of emotional distress into somatic symptoms, an unfalsifiable hypothesis. There is no reason to think such a mechanism exists, and even if it does, it's still a process happening in the brain so it's no less organic than any other symptom.

 

[Joss]

(Mass) hysteria is often mentioned in the context of apparent cluster outbreaks of ME in the 20th century, especially due to female preponderance. Neurasthenia was believed to strike men more often, those engaged in intellectual work rather than manual. Ultimately both are viewed as manifestations of subconscious conversion of emotional distress into somatic symptoms, an unfalsifiable hypothesis. There is no reason to think such a mechanism exists, and even if it does, it's still a process happening in the brain so it's no less organic than any other symptom.

I know. But if you look back at the history and case histories the presentation of hysteria is mentioned as 'florid' - the women are manic and attention seeking they have spasms and dance around etc. ME/CFS has never been spoken of in this way - writings on neurasthenia, on the other hand talk of prostration and malaise etc which is more like ME/CFS.

I do not in any way believe there is any proof for psychogenesis in relation to any of this. What I do wonder is if some of the people who were given these diagnosis in the 18th and 19th century did in fact have what we now call ME/CFS.

I also agree with you on the gender roles assigned in these cases - it was, in part, the topic of my MA dissertation.

As someone who studied this stuff for my degree and MA in philosophy I do understand the mind/body stuff and that it is all 'bodily/organic' etc - you misundertood what I was saying. Which is that there were always people with the illness now called ME/CFS or CFIDS or SEID or whatever who were put in the hysteria/neuresthenia bag. There is no reason to think it suddenly started in the documented outbreak of 1934.

 

[Bob]

@Bob - I posted the material about Elaine Showalter (which I hope you have read) because she and Shorter cross reference each other and reinforce each others theories and publications. They have both been highly influential in portraying ME as not only psychosomatic, but have put it into a historical continuum of 'hysterical diseases', or 'hysterical plagues' as Showalter puts it.

Thanks Wildcat. I'm not familiar with Showalter either, so your earlier post didn't mean much to me. Thanks for filling in some details. I've probably skimmed some of the details on this thread because I'm not familiar with any of the names being discussed.

 

[Dx Revision Watch]

I know. But if you look back at the history and case histories the presentation of hysteria is mentioned as 'florid' - the women are manic and attention seeking they have spasms and dance around etc.

And some of them were apparently being paid for their "performances" - which also, from illustrations and photos, appeared to involve a degree of déshabillé.

I'm glad the late Richard Webster's site remains online:

http://www.richardwebster.net/freudandhysteria.html

 

[chipmunk1]

Personally I think there is a lot in Freud in general that is OK and many neurologists are going back and looking at him again along with David Hume (a philosopher)..

A lot?

Everything that is still relevant today(almost nothing) was copied from others. His own ideas are all disproven or irrelevant. He made up almost anything of his findings. Almost all of his case studies were made up. His theories were based entirely on his personal fantasies. he developed a lot of them while being under the influence of cocaine.

Freud did not have one single documented success story. He managed to injure, harm or even kill a high percentage of his patients. he knew that psychoanalysis was not going to help but continued to hype it or even suggested that it could cure.

 

[Joss]

And some of them were apparently being paid for their "performances" - which also, from illustrations and photos, appeared to involve a degree of déshabillé.

Indeed - especially those 'displayed' to an audience at the Sapeltriere by Charcot.

There is a distinction to be made between the term 'mass hysteria' and 'hysteria' though which further complicates what these idiot biopsychosocialist/somatisation nuts are banging on about when they use it.

I had the unpleasant experience of reading a book edited by Peter While last year - it was all I could do not to rip it up and wipe my arse with it but it was from the Library - I wouldn't give him my money. I do like that it only has 1 star on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biopsychoso...7&sr=1-1&keywords=peter+white+biopsychosocial

 

[Joss]

A lot?

Everything that is still relevant today(almost nothing) was copied from others

Well - maybe a 'lot' was overstating it - I think the idea of the 'unconscious' has become more prominent as a reasonable idea recently - I do agree he largely nicked that one though.

You clearly have a loathing for the guy. I don't hate him quite that much in terms of some of his general theories that have become common even in everyday thinking and language. I think some of the general concepts of his theory of mind are useful to people as a short cut to discussing how they feel.

All I'm saying is I wouldn't write the whole lot off just because much of it is bad.

I should be harder on him as I had the wonderful experience of having this guy as a prof in the late 80's : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9026176/Professor-Frank-Cioffi.html

The most brilliant and fun lecturer I ever had.


Strangely as you have a picture Herr Doctor to represent you I am feeling chastised by his ghost... ha ha ha !

 

[lansbergen]

Of course ME/CFS do not and never have presented as 'hysteria'

Was the Royal Free epidemic not called mass hysteria?