TERM to assess and treat functional disorders

[A.B.]

· The doctor is supposed to listen carefully to the patient and make the patient feel understood.


· He is supposed to tell the patient that his illness has a name, ‘functional disorder’, and then send the patient to a psychiatrist.


· He should be stoic to side effects.


· If the patient gets worse the doctor should see it as emotional communication more than a new illness.


· The doctor should try to be the only doctor for the patient. No second opinion.


· The doctor should cooperate with the family against the patient and recommendpsychiatric treatment.


· People with physical illnesses will not easily accept this and ends up as ‘difficult’ patients.


· I order to learn how to handle those ‘difficult’ patients Per Fink runs courses with actors as patients, so the young doctors can learn how to handle them.


· The model says too:“Essential elements in the model are to make the patient feel understood, then to broaden the agenda, and finally to negotiate a new understanding of the symptoms including psychosocial factors.”


· The psychiatrist tries to make the patient understand that what he feels is not real, it is only in his mind, and therefore it is a good idea with for example psychoactive drugs.

http://www.funktionellidelse.dk/termmodelleninEnglishside1.html

 

[Valentijn]

That is unspeakably perverse ... if the patient is getting worse physically in the process of treatment, it's EMOTIONAL?!? FFS.

 

[Wildcat]

.
"We let Per Fink and other psychiatrists do what they want with sick people: mindfulness, cognitive therapy, physical training and mental drugs,..."
.
.
It didn't take long for 'mindfulness' to be exploited as a weapon against physically sick people, did it..

.Even meditation is being turned into an abusive 'treatment'.

.



.

 

[A.B.]

That is unspeakably perverse ... if the patient is getting worse physically in the process of treatment, it's EMOTIONAL?!? FFS.

This is probably how they justify keeping Karina Hansen locked up and forcing treatment on her. After all, negative reactions are just an emotional response.

Fink calls his detractors mentally ill because he's apparently convinced that there are no rational reasons to object to his approach.

 

[barbc56]

We need a raspberry emoticon. Is it there and I missed it?

Barb

 

[alex3619]

We need a raspberry emoticon. Is it there and I missed it?

Barb

Close enough. Though I still like this: and this:

What, we are immortal? That would be nice if it were true, or it would be if we were not so sick.

This is psychobabble in action. What rational reason is put forward to predict ME patients are immortal, cannot have worsening health, and cannot develop new diseases?

Why is the medical community allowing this to go on? Its a failure in global medical responsibility.

 

[biophile]

The doctor is supposed to listen carefully to the patient and make the patient feel understood.

It's difficult to honestly make the patient feel "understood" in the longterm when the doctor has little idea what's actually going on and purposely downplays the implications of symptoms with false confidence.

He is supposed to tell the patient that his illness has a name, ‘functional disorder’, and then send the patient to a psychiatrist.

That's not a useful name, it's an ambiguous and often pejorative wastebasket diagnosis.

According to a paper Fink co-authored, a diagnosis of functional disorder "was associated with a decline in physical health (OR 3.27(95%CI 1.84-5.81)), but this was not the case with MUS diagnosed by the GP".

We do need better diagnostic tools, but Fink's bodily distress disorder is an attempt to forge "one ring to rule them all".

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."

(OK, a little over the top, but still, anyone got a better funnier analogy of what BDD is to CFS etc?).

I can think of a few "names" for incompetent doctors as well.

He should be stoic to side effects.

Who, the doctor or the patient? Being stoic to the side effects of treatments has permanently worsened my health.

If the patient gets worse the doctor should see it as emotional communication more than a new illness.

Sounds like faulty logic and a slippery slope to malpractice.

The doctor should try to be the only doctor for the patient. No second opinion.

That's ironic Didn't Karina Hanson already have an effective doctor before one of Fink's underlings took over?

The doctor should cooperate with the family against the patient and recommend psychiatric treatment.

"Against" the patient? Sounds like a conspiracy!

People with physical illnesses will not easily accept this and ends up as ‘difficult’ patients.

Don't blame them if they have physical illnesses which don't respond to this brand of psychobabble!

I order to learn how to handle those ‘difficult’ patients Per Fink runs courses with actors as patients, so the young doctors can learn how to handle them.

I wonder if they are trained to handle understandably-angry family members: "Shit's about to get real yo!".

The model says too:“Essential elements in the model are to make the patient feel understood, then to broaden the agenda, and finally to negotiate a new understanding of the symptoms including psychosocial factors.”

So, win the patient's trust so they are more susceptible to reprogramming. It would all be very well and good if it really is for the patients' good, but these people have set themselves up as the arbitrators of judging what is correct. Even if their model partly fits and helps some patients, they have been overreaching to every disorder they can get away with.

I shudder at the thought of one of Fink's misguided underlings touching me on the shoulder with a smug smile of false optimism about the future success of therapy. I've seen that look before and it feels so shallow.

The psychiatrist tries to make the patient understand that what he feels is not real, it is only in his mind, and therefore it is a good idea with for example psychoactive drugs.

What they feel is real. Did something get lost in translation to English? Critics of psychobabble have been accused of misrepresenting psychobabblers' position about doubting the 'reality' of symptoms and being all in the mind. But famous psychobabbler Fink runs a program telling patients exactly that, what they feel is not real and just in the mind?

I also get annoyed when I see whiplash as an example of a functional disorder. I know someone with "whiplash" who has documented organic nerve damage and is successfully treated for it by a pain specialist.

 

[biophile]

A critic of Per Fink / TERM prepared a presentation:

https://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind1406a&L=co-cure&F=&S=&P=25050

One scary gem:

Per Fink claims that:

"The more the physically-ill patients object to getting a psychiatric diagnosis, the more mentally ill they are".

 

[Sean]

"The more the physically-ill patients object to getting a psychiatric diagnosis, the more mentally ill they are".

That there, sir, is your standard double-bind logic, the most distinguishing characteristic of which is a complete lack of legitimacy and ethics.

Psychiatrist - You are mentally ill, and in denial about it.
Patient - No, I am not.
Psychiatrist - See, I told you!

No, really, it is that appallingly idiotic, and the rest of his profession are almost as culpable for letting him get away with it.

 

[alex3619]

A critic of Per Fink / TERM prepared a presentation:

https://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind1406a&L=co-cure&F=&S=&P=25050

One scary gem:

Per Fink claims that:

"The more the physically-ill patients object to getting a psychiatric diagnosis, the more mentally ill they are".

Classic redirection, used in psychoanalysis and promoted by Freud. Freud is discredited, but his legacy lives on.

Compare to this: "The more this heretic denies the primacy of the Papacy, the more in league with Lucifer he is. He is a lost soul."

It was this kind of nonsense that led Popper to declare psychoanalysis was nonscience. Later this was relabelled pseudoscience. It continues, it seems.

 

[alex3619]

No, really, it is that appallingly idiotic, and the rest of his profession are almost as culpable for letting him get away with it.

This is why I claim that while individual practitioners are mostly not to blame for this, the entire medical profession is responsible.

 

[A.B.]

What, if anything, could convince a person like Fink that the patient isn't mentally ill?

 

[alex3619]

What, if anything, could convince a person like Fink that the patient isn't mentally ill?

When Popper considered that question with respect to Freud, he concluded: nothing.

 

[Ecoclimber]

The second round hasn't hit. I will be wondering how much money will be settled on if they do settled. There is so much tort liability exposed here. Doctors make poor lawyers. I can see a case for malpractice, due process, false imprisonment, maltreatment and a abuse of patient, emotional and physical suffering, negligence, conflict of interest, fraud etc. I hope the guy loses his license. The above criteria is excellent criteria if you want to be hit by malpractice lawsuit as it has already suggested a premeditated line of questions where the patient health concerns are disregarded. The patient is not a prisoner in some gulag but has the legal right that the physician will practice the best medicine based on the doctor's experience and training, lab test, and on the patient symptoms and not a preconceived plan to limit effective treatment because of a conflict of interest or pressure from insurance industries or hospital staff. Every patient has a right to a second opinion.

Doctors make lousy witnesses before an aggressive tort lawyer. Certainly their reputation will be called into question and proper disciplince complaints should be filed with the medical board against the doctor who follows such misguided advice by other organizations.

 

[A.B.]

Fink's quacky clinic receives financial support from the Tryg Foundation (insurance company) and Lundbeck Foundation (the manufacturer of psychiatric medication). According to the document, it amounts to about 20 million Euro / 27 million US dollars over 4-5 years.

Just like with Wessely, it seems Fink has built a career on representing industry interests.

 

[Sean]

I think the truth about people like Fink is that, in some sense at least, they are quite aware of what has happened, and their role in it, and have a pretty good idea what the consequences are going to be for them when the rest of society catches up with the real story.

Hence their increasingly shrill, desperate, and vicious attempts to shut down debate about them and their failed 'ideas'. They are stalling for time, hoping against hope they will not be called to account in their lifetime.

It only seems fair to ask just what are the predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating factors behind the sort of irrational, violent behaviour in which people like Fink so readily indulge?

What is the psychopathology that drives them to so mistreat sick, vulnerable, innocent humans, including children? And to do it again, and again, and again,…

To make, not just a career, but a calling out of it, to perversely claim they are the ones with the purest motives?

Because their inability to deal with the sad reality of their own malignant behaviour is indisputably a profound and remarkably persistent psychopathology.

What name shall we give to this complex, multi-factorial psychopathology; this grotesque chimera of monomania, power lust, sociopathy, knavery, and sheer moral cowardice: What shall we call this most disturbing, dangerous, and difficult to treat psychopathology of them all?

Wessely's Syndrome?

Just a thought.

 

[Valentijn]

What name shall we give to this complex, multi-factorial psychopathology; this grotesque chimera of monomania, power lust, sociopathy, knavery, and sheer moral cowardice: What shall we call this most disturbing, dangerous, and difficult to treat psychopathology of them all?

Wessely's Syndrome?

Ah-hem. Shouldn't that be Sir Wesseley's Syndrome?