Radio item about ME/CFS

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Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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Parker was brought in at end, briefly, to comment - Parker denied "aggressive" marketing of LP. Denied that LP practioners made claims.

Findley said LP might help 1 in 30 to 40 after proper assessment.
 

Min

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Dr Shepherd has done so well!!!! Ann Diamond was determined to shut him up about LP.

Prof Findley, who seems to be firmly in the Wessely-school-of thought and who has done a trial on LP so is therefore perhaps not without conflict of interest, doesn't seem to know the difference between the completely different illness chronic fatigue and chronic fatigue syndrome. Where do his optimistic recovery rates come from? His chronic fatigue patients?

Phil Parker, who unfortunately was given the last word, says his practitioners do not make claims and that LP is not aggressively marketed? No?

(That was my comment they read out about all research money being inappropriately given to the psychiatric profession since the 1980s.)
 

Sasha

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Findley said LP might help 1 in 30 to 40 after proper assessment.

I find it incredible that he would consider being involved in a trial with a treatment he believes to be so ineffective. If a trial on heart disease were proposed for a treatment that helped fewer than 3% of patients it would never get off the ground. How utterly bizarre.
 

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(That was my comment they read out about all research money being inappropriately given to the psychiatric profession since the 1980s.)

Yes, well done, Min! I'll look forward to hearing it when it becomes available.
 

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Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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Tony B has posted on FB:

Parker's claim was bollocks and I know it! I was at the receiving end of an orchestrated campaign from LP practitioners and their acolytes after making a mild criticism of LP in a Daily Mail piece focusing on an LP "recovery "story.

I received 176 emails from LP practitioners and their acolytes in the fortnight following. And that Saturday and Sunday, six practitioners invaded my privacy by phoning me at home. I ended up having a John Sweeney-type blowup at the last two of them. Did my blood pressure no good at all!

Tony
 
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Findlay's senior OT at the so called National ME Centre (Gerri de Vries, now left), trained to be an LP trainer a few years ago, they did a talk about LP at the Ramsay Society conference in 2007. Findlay supposedly did a pilot LP study with Parker but it was never published. Now apparently Findlay uses his own version of LP. Findlay is not an independent voice on LP -
 

Min

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Tony's not the only one to be harassed by them:

from the publication Private Eye

"ME sufferers were stunned recently to receive threatening letters when they posted their views on the "Lightening Process", a programme that allegedly produces "amazing results" for people not only with ME but "anxiety, panic attack, over-eating, low self-esteem and guilt" too. When sufferers started reporting they had paid 600 for a course that did not work for the, they received warning of defamation proceedings if they did not recant."

(issue 1248, p10, about halfway down the "Legal News" section)
 

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Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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I find it incredible that he would consider being involved in a trial with a treatment he believes to be so ineffective. If a trial on heart disease were proposed for a treatment that helped fewer than 3% of patients it would never get off the ground. How utterly bizarre.

It was an informal non RCT study between 2006 and 2007, and the results were never published though Findley has spoken about the study to the Canadian media and the article is still online:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/health/lightning-process.html

[...]

Research

"We are dealing with a number of disorders, and we are still not able to divide the subgroups carefully enough — we're looking at apples and oranges and plums," agrees Dr. Leslie Findley, an expert in Parkinson's disease and a clinical neuroscientist in Essex, England.

He is conducting a pilot study with CFS patients and the Lightning Process — the first independent study of its kind — and he says so far, his research indicates it benefits about two-thirds of patients. For the other third, there is no change in their illness, and in a small number of cases there can be bad relapses.

While the findings are not as high as the 100-per-cent success rate some practitioners of the Lightning Process claim, it does imply that the training program can help some people, and that a verbal technique can be used as a treatment for this physical illness.

"Do I believe that CFS is psychosomatic? The answer is an emphatic no. It is a disorder of the brain," Findley says.

But, he adds, he doesn't think the Lightning Process is going to be the definitive treatment for CFS. "Most patients, if properly managed, will recover on their own. I just see this as another way of helping patients that haven't responded to much simpler approaches."
 

Sasha

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It was an informal non RCT study between 2006 and 2007, and the results were never published though Findley has spoken about the study to the Canadian media and the article is still online:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/health/lightning-process.html

[...]

Research

"We are dealing with a number of disorders, and we are still not able to divide the subgroups carefully enough — we're looking at apples and oranges and plums," agrees Dr. Leslie Findley, an expert in Parkinson's disease and a clinical neuroscientist in Essex, England.

He is conducting a pilot study with CFS patients and the Lightning Process — the first independent study of its kind — and he says so far, his research indicates it benefits about two-thirds of patients. For the other third, there is no change in their illness, and in a small number of cases there can be bad relapses.

While the findings are not as high as the 100-per-cent success rate some practitioners of the Lightning Process claim, it does imply that the training program can help some people, and that a verbal technique can be used as a treatment for this physical illness.

"Do I believe that CFS is psychosomatic? The answer is an emphatic no. It is a disorder of the brain," Findley says.

But, he adds, he doesn't think the Lightning Process is going to be the definitive treatment for CFS. "Most patients, if properly managed, will recover on their own. I just see this as another way of helping patients that haven't responded to much simpler approaches."

Can't find the 1 in 30 or 40 figure - he seems to be saying that 2/3 are helped. Am I missing something?!
 
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Meagenda wrote:

"Tony B has posted on FB:

Parker's claim was bollocks and I know it! I was at the receiving end of an orchestrated campaign from LP practitioners and their acolytes after making a mild criticism of LP in a Daily Mail piece focusing on an LP "recovery "story.

I received 176 emails from LP practitioners and their acolytes in the fortnight following. And that Saturday and Sunday, six practitioners invaded my privacy by phoning me at home. I ended up having a John Sweeney-type blowup at the last two of them. Did my blood pressure no good at all!

Tony"


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The fanaticism of LP fans and trainers in promoting LP is partly a result of the hypnosis content of LP - that LP clients are told to do near continuous self hypnosis of the STOP technique to banish all supposedly 'negative' thoughts. And that includes banishing critical thinking and doubts about LP itself. LP is very extreme and overrules critical thinking.
 

Sasha

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The fanaticism of LP fans and trainers in promoting LP is partly a result of the hypnosis content of LP - that LP clients are told to do near continuous self hypnosis of the STOP technique to banish all supposedly 'negative' thoughts. And that includes banishing critical thinking and doubts about LP itself. LP is very extreme and overrules critical thinking.

This is how cults are run! Really very worrying.
 
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I wonder if Phil Parker does the 'Stop' technique on himself 50 times a day (as some LP clients do) and so banishes all doubt from his mind, and also banishes self reflection about the ethics of what he does with his monstrous invention Lightning Process.


To be honest Parker sounded a bit rough on the Anne Diamond programme. He did not sound too confident, but just kept repeating his standard phrases that he trots out to promote and defend LP. Maybe he is not in the same league as Richard Bandler when it comes to staying the course of promoting his 'baby' when the going gets tough.
 

Sasha

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Can't find the 1 in 30 or 40 figure - he seems to be saying that 2/3 are helped. Am I missing something?!

Just heard it on the replay - he really is saying that he thinks that small a number of PWC will be helped. He seemed to be agreeing much more with Dr Shepherd than I had expected - I thought the Lightning Process came off very badly.

Thanks to all those people who wrote in and to the MEA for getting this riposte on Radio Berkshire.
 

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Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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Can't find the 1 in 30 or 40 figure - he seems to be saying that 2/3 are helped. Am I missing something?!

The "1 in 30 to 40" was what Findley said today, in the Radio Berkshire interview - not the 2007 media article.

Suzy
 

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Suzy Chapman Owner of Dx Revision Watch
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I had to smile at Parker's insistance that the other contributors were not citing "science" but "opinion".

Like stepping into people's bodies is "science"?
 
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