Psychoquackery on BBC Radio 4

[MeSci]

Here we go again.

Medically unexplained symptoms, sometimes known as MUS, cause problems for both patient and doctor, and they're common, up to a fifth of a GP's workload, and around half of all specialist referrals, costing the NHS more than £3 billion a year. Rona Moss Morris is Professor of Psychology as Applied to Medicine at King's College London and she believes the NHS fails such patients. She tells Mark what she thinks needs to change, starting with the name, MUS.

The programme can be listened to here, and the item in question starts at about 22.20 in the audio file.

There is so much BS - unchallenged as usual - that I hardly know where to start in criticising it, and don't have time at present. A thought that comes to mind is that it is easy for psychoquackery to be spouted and accepted despite there being no evidence - of a quality required in science - to support it. Another is that the lack of medical evidence for disease does not mean that there is no physical disease, but that the appropriate tests may not be being done.

Moss-Morris even tries to 'understand' our anger. Can't you just feel the gentle pat on your seething head? And she is keen to stress that doctors should not order too many tests...

I would be interested in @charles shepherd's views on this, as he has previously commented on tests provided on the NHS for suspected ME/CFS.

Note, however, that Moss-Morris has avoided mentioning ME/CFS this time. Unlike in her other appearances this year on the lecture circuit, I believe.

You can contact the programme using the contact details here.

I have never had any proper replies to my own emails to the programme.

 

[Sidereal]

but that the appropriate tests may not be being done

Or may not exist yet at the present time.

 

[TiredSam]

Medically unexplained symptoms, sometimes known as MUS

I find it very concerning that this acronym (MUS) might be making its way into common use, as it allows the psychoquackers to cast a very wide net. It's actually a way for them to claim maximum territory. If CFS is a wastebasket diagnosis, then this is a landfill site diagnosis. Just when I thought they might be retreating and good sense about to prevail, they're going all-in for the whole hog. It's enough to exacerbate my metaphoric excess syndrome.

 

[Sidereal]

If CFS is a wastebasket diagnosis, then this is a landfill site diagnosis.

 

[girlinthesnow]

Psychology is not medicine or science and has no place whatsoever in either.

 

[Valentijn]

MUS is too vague, and the general public will take it at face value - unexplained symptoms. It's only psychologists and medical practitioners who will have any idea what they're talking about, which makes it harder for them to do much damage with the terminology.

I do think that their tactic of constant name changes bites them in the ass a bit.

 

[Sasha]

Psychology is not medicine or science and has no place whatsoever in either.

Psychology is science - but like all science, it can be badly done.

 

[A.B.]

Psychology is science - but like all science, it can be badly done.

Science is based on observable physical evidence.

When we are talking about personality defects or psychological problems we are not dealing with observable physical evidence but opinion.

 

[TiredSam]

MUS is too vague, and the general public will take it at face value - unexplained symptoms. It's only psychologists and medical practitioners who will have any idea what they're talking about, which makes it harder for them to do much damage with the terminology.

I do think that their tactic of constant name changes bites them in the ass a bit.

I'm worried that we might reach a point where the general public, after hearing enough radio programs or newspaper articles, think "MUS, isn't that like psychosomatic?". Heaven forbid it ever becomes an official diagnosis, but stranger things have happened.

 

[Bob]

And she is keen to stress that doctors should not order too many tests...

Hmm, so who would that recommendation benefit? The patient? No. ... Erm... Oh yes, of course, the medical insurance industry.

 

[Sasha]

Science is based on observable physical evidence.

Science is based on observables, certainly - if you can't observe a thing you can't measure it - but behaviour is an observable and so is self-report of subjective phenomena.

 

[sarah darwins]

Thanks for listening to this, MeSci, so that I don't have to. I can't face it. I had resolved not even to comment on threads like this for a while, but ....

It's one thing for a psychologist to talk about coping strategies etc. But if she is suggesting to physicians that they carry out fewer tests, that feels like a serious line being crossed. She is in no way qualified to make such a recommendation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rona_Moss-Morris

 

[TiredSam]

Thanks for listening to this, MeSci, so that I don't have to. I can't face it. I had resolved not even to comment on threads like this for a while, but ....

I haven't listened to it either. I've been considering cutting down the amount of time I spend exposing myself to this kind of stuff too, I could use my energy much more beneficially than being wound up and upset by such appalling nonsense. Very grateful for people who keep track of it and try to deal with it though.

 

[sarah darwins]

Psychology is science - but like all science, it can be badly done.

Back in the 90s I took a year and a bit of an Open University psych degree. I went to the week-long summer school at the end of year one. The question of whether psychology was a science had not really occurred to me at that point. I thought it was something else entirely but drawing on elements of science.

But then the lecturers spent a huge amount of the week explaining why psychology was a science. I'm sure we had at least two lectures with pretty much that title. It was all so desperate, I found that the more they insisted the less I believed it. By the end of the week I came to the conclusion "Nah, it's not really, is it."

I started on year 2 of the course but my heart was no longer in it and I lost interest. That desperate need to be taken seriously had a lot to do with my disenchantment.

 

[A.B.]

Science is based on observables, certainly - if you can't observe a thing you can't measure it - but behaviour is an observable and so is self-report of subjective phenomena.

In psychology, these observations of behaviour, physiological parameters, etc. are just a launch pad for making various untestable claims.

 

[msf]

Psychoquackery in the UK? Surely not!

Actually, if you look at it in terms of adaptive behaviour, psychoquackery in the UK makes perfect sense - the NHS just doesn't have enough money to treat everyone, so if they can get away with just pretending to treat some patients they can avoid accusations of failure.

 

[sarah darwins]

In psychology, these observations of behaviour, physiological parameters, etc. are just a launch pad for making various untestable claims.

Funnily enough, those same lecturers who were so desperate to persuade us that what they did was science also had a bit of a mantra which they would repeat with a sort of whimsical shrug:

"Psychology is very good at observing things, not very good at predicting them."

Which to me, at the time, felt a lot like a definition of "not a science, then".

 

[Sasha]

In psychology, these observations of behaviour, physiological parameters, etc. are just a launch pad for making various untestable claims.

And that's what I mean by science badly done.

 

[Sasha]

Funnily enough, those same lecturers who were so desperate to persuade us that what they did was science also had a bit of a mantra which they would repeat with a sort of whimsical shrug:

"Psychology is very good at observing things, not very good at predicting them."

Which to me, at the time, felt a lot like a definition of "not a science, then".

I think it's a definition of 'not an easy science'.

But we digress!

 

[MeSci]

Back in the 90s I took a year and a bit of an Open University psych degree. I went to the week-long summer school at the end of year one. The question of whether psychology was a science had not really occurred to me at that point. I thought it was something else entirely but drawing on elements of science.

But then the lecturers spent a huge amount of the week explaining why psychology was a science. I'm sure we had at least two lectures with pretty much that title. It was all so desperate, I found that the more they insisted they less I believed it. By the end of the week I came to the conclusion "Nah, it's not really, is it."

I started on year 2 of the course but my heart was no longer in it and I lost interest. That desperate need to be taken seriously had a lot to do with my disenchantment.

I did a year of Psychology at the OU too - probably a different course, which I chose because it didn't have a summer school, which I found difficult due to ME. Mine was 'Social Psychology'. Despite the name, it was a very mixed course, spanning quackery like Freud, some interesting child psychology (e.g. Piaget) and also biological psychology including a bit of neuroscience. I'm concerned that a niece is now at uni studying psychology, and hoping that she can see through the BS.