Psychology Today Opinion piece regarding the IOM release

Kati

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
i received an email today:

Dear Ms. @Kati ,


Thank you for your email. I have passed it along to Dean Young for his attention.


I understand the article has been removed by Psychology Today in consultation with Professor Shorter.


I appreciate you writing to us and expressing your concerns.


Sincerely,

Amy Lee




Amy Lee

Executive Secretary to the Dean

Faculty of Medicine

University of Toronto

Room 2109, Medical Sciences Building

1 King’s College Circle

Toronto, ON M5S 1A8

Phone: 416 946-7810

Email: meddean.admin@utoronto.ca
 
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Kati

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
Kyla said:
Will there be a retraction or an opposing viewpoint published?

This is more of a rhetorical question as I am quite sure the answer is no.
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He likely took it down a day or 2 later and wrote a second piece which would not be as upsetting but still offering a slanted view of our patient population.

The dammage is done however and considering the fact that is a a member of the faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto and likely teaching students, this is scary to my eyes and unacceptable.
 
L

lazzlazz

Messages
60
Location
Seattle
lazzlazz said:
Links to archived versions of comments from the Psyc Today article, in case they are removed at some point
mostly Feb 20, 2015 comments: http: //web.archive.org/web/20150304204407/https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-everyone-became-depressed/201502/chronic-fatigue-in-the-context-the-history-medicine
Mostly Feb 23, 2015 comments: https://web.archive.org/web/2015022...essed/201502/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-is-back

Any time you think a webpage should be archived, go to
waybackmachine.org, scroll down, and insert the URL of the webpage into the SAVE PAGE NOW window. It only archives the exact URL you enter; if you want to archive multiple pages, you have to enter multiple URLs.

Here is an email I sent to the editor of Psychology Today at https://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/kaja-perina
I have lost all respect for Psychology Today after reading the diatribe on chronic fatigue syndrome written by Shorter. The people writing comments to the article are better informed than he is, and his comments (especially given the scientific evidence against them) are extremely harmful to patients.

Shorter's comments should be removed from your website, if your website is to have any respectability, or at the very least, should be prefaced by an editorial comment saying that there is scientific evidence which contradicts his opinion. Shorter says there is no scientific evidence for the existence of CFS (or SEID, or whatever name is chosen for it). Leonard James, a clinical psychologist who was quoted in another article on CFS, would clearly disagree - perhaps he should write this editorial comment.

If you read the comments following the article (some of which were removed, but have been archived in the internet archive), you will see that "DM on February 20, 2015 - 4:36am " found plenty of scientific evidence in peer-reviewed journals (other commenters did as well).

You as editor may not be a scientist, but you have access to them, and if your magazine is retain any amount of credibility, you simply cannot allow the kind of garbage that Shorter published.
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Regarding the piece "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back" which has been removed from Psychology Today: at the time, I put it in the internet archive at the time; see link above in the quote if you want to see it. (Note there still is a 2nd blog by Edward Shorter on CFS at Psychology Today, but that is different from the piece "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back" that was removed.)

See message above from U of Toronto Dean's office saying the piece had been taken down by Psychology Today.

This is the title/subtitle of the piece that was removed:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back!
But the new Institute of Medicine report is driven by politics, not science
Post published by Edward Shorter Ph.D. on Feb 19, 2015 in How Everyone Became Depressed

If you can still add comments over at the Psychology Today piece titled "Chronic Fatigue in the Context of the History of Medicine" (https://web.archive.org/web/2015053...c-fatigue-in-the-context-the-history-medicine), someone could put a link to the internet archived version of this article:

"Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back" (https: //web .archive. org/web/20150220123853/https: //www. psychologytoday. com /blog/how-everyone-became-depressed/201502/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-is-back
Note I put spaces before and after "org" and "com", and after "http", "https", and "www" so the full address would show up here. You need to remove those spaces; here it is without the spaces so it is click-able: https://web.archive.org/web/2015022...essed/201502/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-is-back

PS: I've written to the OP of this thread suggesting that a link to the web.archive.org version of this article be put in the first post of this thread, if it's still possible to edit that first post.​
 
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Kati

Kati

Patient in training
Messages
5,497
lazzlazz said:
Regarding the piece "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back" which has been removed from Psychology Today: at the time, I put it in the internet archive at the time; see link above in the quote if you want to see it. (Note there still is a 2nd blog by Edward Shorter on CFS at Psychology Today, but that is different from the piece "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back" that was removed.)

See message above from U of Toronto Dean's office saying the piece had been taken down by Psychology Today.

This is the title/subtitle of the piece that was removed:
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back!
But the new Institute of Medicine report is driven by politics, not science
Post published by Edward Shorter Ph.D. on Feb 19, 2015 in How Everyone Became Depressed

If you can still add comments over at the Psychology Today piece titled "Chronic Fatigue in the Context of the History of Medicine" (https://web.archive.org/web/2015053...c-fatigue-in-the-context-the-history-medicine), someone could put a link to the internet archived version of this article:

"Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is Back" (https: //web .archive. org/web/20150220123853/https: //www. psychologytoday. com /blog/how-everyone-became-depressed/201502/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-is-back
Note I put spaces before and after "org" and "com", and after "http", "https", and "www" so the full address would show up here. You need to remove those spaces; here it is without the spaces so it is click-able: https://web.archive.org/web/2015022...essed/201502/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-is-back

PS: I've written to the OP of this thread suggesting that a link to the web.archive.org version of this article be put in the first post of this thread, if it's still possible to edit that first post.​
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Hi @lazzlazz when the threads become a bit dated, we no longer have the capacity to edit them, but I will make a request to the mods to change the link, thank you for this.

As an update, i never received any response from U of T. Perhaps not surprising since the new dean comes from the faculty of psychiatry.
 
Izola

Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
With a background in social psych research, PT lost their credibility with me decades ago. Guess I should had said something back then. Can't imagine how psychiatry, this non-science dangerous crap, has been allowed to perpetuate. Maybe Alex can clue me in. He understands the history of psych far better than I. What I see is a bunch of theory brewing arrogants, some with pipes, some without, none with empirical research to support them.

(I don't knock those naturally gifted therapists who help us untie our personal emotional and social knots we get from time to time.)

BTW, my intro to sociology text (circa 1970) mentioned the California hospital ME outbreak (1930's or 40's) and concluded it an example of mass hysteria. My response was visceral and immediately intellectually informed. How could thoughts and inner feelings seep through the air and psychologically infect another? Thought miasmas? Hmm-m-mmm. iz
 
Izola

Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
Sidereal said:
I read a few of his books in college. One was a history of psychiatry. He spoke approvingly of early "treatments" like insulin coma therapy and lobotomy.
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Good Lord. How did you survive your education? Well, the truth be that one of my professors who studied under B.F. Skinner brought in a truckload -- yes, backed up to the Social Sciences bldg with crate loads of chickens for students to train after I had said I potty trained my pet chicken. Eeeeek!!!!
iz
 
Izola

Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
Joss said:
Having just spent a week largely in bed in a dark room feeling unwell in ways I cannot find words for I'm ashamed to say that really got to me - I cried, then I felt impotent rage and then I thought - I bet he has connections with Simon - so thanks for checking so I don't have to put myself back in the 'shit-pit' doing it myself.


I love the fact they they claim there is a need for evidence when they have NONE for somatisation in ANY CHRONIC ILLNESS AT ALL. There is simply no evidence for it.
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I put my body into a near death spiral trying to find any research establishing any scientific evidence showing that a somatisation disorder might possibly occur. None. What can occur is that if you have ME and try to find that kind of evidence is that your remaining baseline existence falls into a cellar of screaming pain and darkness. I can even feel my individual cells crying out. Sometimes, I think, my blood refuses to flow. I take heart that I have you all to support me and I try to vice versa. So, now I know. I am in the shit pit. I just knew there was a good name for this. iz
 
Izola

Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
Iquitos said:
This looks like the resume of someone applying for a job with UNUM and/or the psych lobby. Maybe he wants to become a professor at one of the Psychosomatic "Medicine" colleges like the one started and funded at Kings college by UNUM. It should earn him a bonus added to his next paycheck. (Extra points for continuing to make a fool of himself despite all the real scientific evidence of biomedical disease. It's a technique the tobacco lobby used for decades to claim smoking wasn't harmful: just keep chanting the same old BS; if people hear it often enough, some will assume it must be true.)
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So, they don't believe their own shit, huh?
 
Izola

Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
alex3619 said:
Zero tolerance is necessary now. The time for quietly accepting abuse is over. We need to expose all of them as we discover them.
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Does it count that over the years I've gotten back into the faces of many of these nayers? Not so much anymore. :( iz
 
chipmunk1

chipmunk1

Senior Member
Messages
765
Izola said:
So, they don't believe their own shit, huh?
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not sure. i think they dont think highly of somatizers. just view them as weak minded hysterics. they dont care if their science adds up or not. it's of course politically incorrect to admit that so they hide behind their studies and psychobabble. some may be well intentioned and believe all that mind over matter stuff.
 
Izola

Izola

Senior Member
Messages
495
chipmunk1 said:
not sure. i think they dont think highly of somatizers. just view them as weak minded hysterics. they dont care if their science adds up or not. it's of course politically incorrect to admit that so they hide behind their studies and psychobabble. some may be well intentioned and believe all that mind over matter stuff.
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So, if I told them that I've been floating up near the cathedral ceiling a lot these days, that would be mind over matter and therefore credible and acceptable to some of them? ;) iz
 
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