BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

It's a hell of a lot of work, logistically, physically, and cognitively, to get to a GP for me.

I've only ever done it if I consider both that something is having a serious effect on my capabilities, and that they have the capability to help.

I have never been to a GP because I was 'lonely'.

I have mostly been disappointed by GPs ability to understand that something is serious enough to force me to visit them for assistance, their ability to understand what's wrong, and their usually total dedication to preventing me from getting any treatment that would be helpful.

In my experience, they seem to be gatekeeper underlings, whose only purpose is to be there not to help me. Instead they seem to be there specifically to prevent my getting help by refusing to run appropriate tests or refer me to people who might actually know what they are talking about.

Of course, having little experience, I have to take it on faith that these people actually exist, somewhere.
 
Mij said:
Ughh.
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What the actual hubristic fuck?

Sorry buddy but absolutely no one thinks of physicians as "people to go talk to". Not now. Not ever. Grow the frack up. Everyone understands what medicine is about and it's not about a good conversation, especially not with people who display such poor listening skills that they'd think something this absurd. Physicians are literally famous for being terrible at it, so much that a euphemism for what people would generally consider to be inappropriate behavior had to be invented in the form of "bedside manners". But mostly the time doesn't even allow it, far too busy for that. Holy insular groupthing, Batman.
 
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Jonathan Edwards said:
ME Association

@MEAssociation
·
5h

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@eleanormorgan
Long read but, if you're up for it, well worth the effort - 'Long Covid: ‘Is this now me forever?’' | The Observer, 29 November, 2020: https://theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/29/eleanor-morgan-is-still-struggling-with-long-covid-months-after-catching-the-virus… #longcovid #longhaulers #mecfs #cfsme #MyalgicE #pwme

Why is the MEA recommending this ill-informed muddle?
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Letter to The Observer Editor at The Guardian

"Prejudicially unscientific medical folklore"

Dear Sir/Madam,

I support the ME Association's firm call for correction of misinformation from Eleanor Morgan's article of 29/11 ("Long Covid: ‘Is this now me forever?’"). The inaccuracies are demonstrably false for legal purposes, regardless of public health harm.

I write as a researcher of the business impact of these anti-scientific medical policy failings (https://www.libf.ac.uk/about-us/academic-community/profile-view/dr-richar-ramyar). The article disseminates prejudicially unscientific medical folklore, documented as baseless by NICE's ME/CFS guideline committee. Highlighting the lack of "solid evidence" is gentlemanly. More pointedly, there is NO evidence for the assertions regarding trauma, thinking or experiences and post-viral disease that Dr. Shepherd rightly asks to be removed. No evidence. None. Full stop (unless one lowers evidence standards towards a "flat-earther" level, for which actual scientists would be fired or Rudi Giuliani hired). Such unscientific medical ignorance is a prime concern of the NICE committee, with harm that moves the needles of government budgets.

I have sympathy for this journalistic misstep. It reflects wider socio-medical failures. These usually distract with complaints about "activists," while omitting illustrious scientists that pity medicine's scientific illiteracy on the topic. As it stands, your current article is necessarily tabulated in future research documenting materially costly misinformation.

In anticipation,
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Arnie Pye said:
Code: 
https://twitter.com/MaryClayton13/status/1333088969102397443



I don't understand Tomlinson's replies to MaryClayton13. He doesn't make it clear whether he thinks endometriosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis or Ehlers Danlos syndrome actually exist? Or they are caused by childhood trauma? Or they don't cause physical trauma? Or they don't leave any legacy of trauma?

What exactly is he trying to get at here? Because it isn't clear (to me) what he thinks or means at all.
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You mean where he replies with: "They're part of my daily practice"?

In a further tweet he expands on his point of view saying: "The other point is that toxic stress affects the developing neuro/endocrine/immune and other systems, so it's biological/physiological which is why autoimmune diseases are much more prevalent in people who have experienced developmental trauma."

So, if I've understood him correctly, whichever way you cut it, it's down to psychological trauma; including the dysfunctional biology. In his opinion.

 
rvallee said:
What the actual hubristic fuck?

Sorry buddy but absolutely no one thinks of physicians as "people to go talk to". Not now. Not ever. Grow the frack up. Everyone understands what medicine is about and it's not about a good conversation, especially not with people who display such poor listening skills that they'd think something this absurd. Physicians are literally famous for being terrible at it, so much that a euphemism for what people would generally consider to be inappropriate behavior had to be invented in the form of "bedside manners". But mostly the time doesn't even allow it, far too busy for that. Holy insular groupthing, Batman.
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He's seems determined not to diagnose anything in his patients. That could be fatal for the patient. Wonder what conditions he's overlooked.
 
I'm trying to figure out what I find disturbing about people like Tomlinson. They might smile and speak gently but fundamentally they are authoritarians that are determined to impose their views on patients and not respect patient autonomy.

How many of his patients would agree that they are really seeing him because of loneliness?
 
strategist said:
I'm trying to figure out what I find disturbing about people like Tomlinson. They might smile and speak gently but fundamentally they are authoritarians that are determined to impose their views on patients and not respect patient autonomy.

How many of his patients would agree that they are really seeing him because of loneliness?
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This is exactly what I often felt. When I met doctors like that in person the hair in my neck stood up. I guess it's trauma afterall, just not the kind they thought.

I'd rather get openly disbelieved, ridiculed or dismissed, at least that would be honest. But wrapping it in nice, twisted words is sickening.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
The Guardian editor in chief, as Frances Ryan implies, needs to ask herself some questions about what her paper is about.
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The Guardian has a long history of malign commentary on ME. An example of SMC psychatrists playing the victim card:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/21/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-myalgic-encephalomyelitis

Wessely's assistant Ben Goldacre was the Guardian science go-to at that time. His Bad Science scepticism was never directed at BPS for some reason, [eta] while his Bad Science forum (off Guardian) was the site of some of the worst anti-ME activity I've seen. An anonymous GP also had a weekly column in which he regularly abused pwME. Others will recall different examples.
 
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rvallee said:
What the actual hubristic fuck?

Sorry buddy but absolutely no one thinks of physicians as "people to go talk to". Not now. Not ever. Grow the frack up. Everyone understands what medicine is about and it's not about a good conversation, especially not with people who display such poor listening skills that they'd think something this absurd. Physicians are literally famous for being terrible at it, so much that a euphemism for what people would generally consider to be inappropriate behavior had to be invented in the form of "bedside manners". But mostly the time doesn't even allow it, far too busy for that. Holy insular groupthing, Batman.
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Ha ha. Well said (as usual)!

Here's an opinion piece he wrote in the BMJ open a few years ago entitled, "'Four problems' - a typical day for a GP" ... at least I think it's the same guy.

I think you can learn a lot about him from this piece.
I'm glad he's not my GP ... not that I actually see mine very often. (Last time was four years ago.)


https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2014/05/02/jonathon-tomlinson-four-problems-a-typical-day-for-a-gp/
 
From the above article:
Tomlinson said:
By now the consultation has gone on for over 15 minutes. In another 15 minutes it will be 1pm and a health visitor will be here to discuss a child protection case we’re both very worried about. There are two patients left to see. I start to panic. I’m feeling irritable and anxious.
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I think his twitter name 'mellojonny' is aspirational rather than rooted in fact. Perhaps he should see someone about those feelings. Perhaps he'd be better suited to another profession, something that didn't require him to interact with people.
 
Trial By Error: Thoughts on The Observer, The Guardian, and Paradigm Shift
Earlier this week, I blogged about a story in The Observer that provided an inaccurate description of what it called chronic fatigue syndrome. For much of the piece, the writer, Eleanor Morgan, offered a sympathetic portrait of people, including herself, experiencing prolonged symptoms after an acute bout of Covid-19. A lot of what she presented was informative and likely helpful for others in that situation.

Unfortunately, as I noted, Morgan got it wrong when she turned to CFS. For this section, she appears to have relied on one set of sources–in particular, those who style themselves biopsychosocialists. And maybe because these biopsychosocial sources were speaking within their presumed field of authority, she did not dig deeper in order to present the more complicated reality—that the theoretical framework she highlighted has been seriously challenged in recent years and is now in threat of collapse.
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https://www.virology.ws/2020/12/02/...the-observer-the-guardian-and-paradigm-shift/
 
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