Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Barely able to leave the house, told they are exaggerating and even that their ailment does not exist: Three ME patients reveal

[Lucibee]

The point is that 'psychological' is a vague term that affords all sorts of opportunities for slipperiness in arguments.

I would agree, and probably go further. I don't actually think there are any "psychological diseases" as such. There may well be psychological symptoms, but very few psychological causes, and even then, the causal pathways are probably quite complex.

I've always thought that Beck's notion of the ability of thoughts to cause (psycho)pathology was rather far fetched. As far as I'm concerned, my depression is an organic mood disorder. It is caused by the effect my hormones have on my brain, and not by the effect my depressive thoughts have on my emotions (or anything else). For me, the best "therapy" was realising that, rather than constantly trying to change it or blaming myself for feeling so bad.

Use of Beck's theory to underpin a cognitive theory of ME/CFS is even more tenuous, as there are so many indications that it is simply not true. The stigma attached to behaving a certain way because you are ill is one thing, but the stigma attached to the perception by others that your (normal, healthy) behaviour [eg, resting] towards the horrible symptoms of your illness [eg, PEM] is abnormal (or "maladaptive") is quite another. I don't think that SW, RH and MS quite get that.

 

[Hoopoe]

I've always thought that Beck's notion of the ability of thoughts to cause (psycho)pathology was rather far fetched. As far as I'm concerned, my depression is an organic mood disorder. It is caused by the effect my hormones have on my brain, and not by the effect my depressive thoughts have on my emotions (or anything else). For me, the best "therapy" was realising that, rather than constantly trying to change it or blaming myself for feeling so bad.

Yes. I suspect that psychiatry and psychology causes a lot of suffering by telling people they are causing their own illness.

 

[adambeyoncelowe]

Psychological can quite fairly mean as little as 'relating to the mind' or 'affecting the mind'.

Alzheimer's entails much more than "some psychological effects". You literally lose your mind. Of course the cause is neuro-something.

Brainfog profoundly reduces mental abilities. Perhaps favored terminology is 'neurocognitive' but I have no problem calling it a salient psychological feature.

The point is that 'psychological' is a vague term that affords all sorts of opportunities for slipperiness in arguments.

Gotcha. Personally, I find that too broad a definition, but I agree it's probably what the BPS crowd means.

The problem, really, is that psyche implies spirit or soul as much as mind. That's where the slipperiness comes in.

 

[Invisible Woman]

Use of Beck's theory to underpin a cognitive theory of ME/CFS is even more tenuous, as there are so many indications that it is simply not true

Absolutely. I became ill in the 90s after the whole "yuppie flu" business. All I knew about ME was what I read in the papers. So, as we've discussed in some other thread recently, I didn't actually believe that ME was a serious disease. At worst it was someone who had allowed themselves to get run down and weren't seeing they needed to sort themselves out. Totally ripe pickings for the BPS material.

It didn't work because it simply isn't true.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought it was a lifestyle problem before they became ill and learned the hard way. Especially those diagnosed in the mid - late 90s.

 

[chrisb]

[The problem seems to be that we do not know what the psychological theories were, how they might have changed, or what they are now. The views do not ever seem to have been tested by knowledgeable critics in a forum where answers must be given. Apart from that all is well.

 

[Trish]

What the BPS crowd mean, I think, is that CFS is psychosomatic.

It's in a different category from
1. organic disorders such as endogenous depression which have a biochemical basis.

And different from
2. reactive depression, which as I understand it is depressive symptoms brought on by adverse life circumstances. Similarly burnout, stress, anxiety, ptsd.

3. Psychosomatic, on the other hand does not depend either on biochemistry or external circumstances but on wrong thinking which they say can be reversed with CBT to teach us right thinking.

I think psychiatrists claim understanding of all three categories of 'mental illness'. When in fact, biomedical treatment is needed for 1, social support for 2, and skilled counselling may help with 1 and 2., and 3. doesn't exist.

How's that for a simplistic overview of mental illness!

 

[Invisible Woman]

From my own experience of BPS proponents is that meaning and interpretation are as fluid as water.

They have the answer - now it's up to you to tie yourself into a mobius strip trying to shape the problem.

 

[ukxmrv]

It really does need thinking about why someone with ME would choose to either pay to see SW as a private patient or in a NHS setting. There's something strange about this idea.

What exactly would be have that would warrant someone spend their time or their money to go and see him. Although some of us do desperate and unlikely things surely they would realise that he has no special treatment or insight to offer?

My guess is that they are coming from a mental health stream and think that they have a mental or stress problem.

 

[Trish]

They have the answer - now it's up to you to tie yourself into a mobius strip trying to shape the problem.

And like a mobius strip it only has one side (theirs, and they are right), and is endless (30 years and counting...).

 

[alex3619]

I don't actually think there are any "psychological diseases" as such.

What the BPS crowd mean, I think, is that CFS is psychosomatic.

Psychosomatic is objectively uncertain as it is, but they usually mean psychogenic, which is the mind causes symptoms. Psychosomatic is broader, to do with how physical and mental interact.

To anyone who knows me it should not be surprising that I do not even agree to the existence of mind. I treat it as a category mistake. When mind is invoked its unspecific and magical, and arguments can be manipulated along magical lines. What I mean by mind is the observable processes of brain function. Its what brains do, rather than what brains are. So when a bipser (biophsychosocialite) argues that mind and brain are the same, I do not disagree, with caveats ... I do not pretend there is any direct equivalence. To me, with current evidence, mind arises from brain, is an outcome or process of brain, and not a separate entity. Its not a thing, its what a thing does.

I do think we can have informational issues though. What we think we know can indeed change behaviour, within limits. The issue here though is pathology, in my view, is organic. Informational issues can be as simple as barracking for your favourite sports team. Why that team? However its dangerous to consider information-based behaviour as pathological, or we psychologise everyday human activity, or in other words cultural phenomenon. Some of that cultural phenomena, though objectively dubious, is what makes life worth living.

So an informational disorder might be considered psychological, pertaining to how the brain operates, but its not pathological in the same way as a brain disorder. Brainwashing of all kinds come to mind. Wait, don't we call propaganda advertising? This is about conditioning people to be more likely to buy a product, or endorse a view, based upon manipulation of information. Informational disorders have objective reality, or advertising companies would be out of a job.

I actually consider reactive depression as an organic disorder. Sure, the trigger is sensory input, but the brain is an organic thing that reacts to sensory input. Mind is not a thing.

 

[Invisible Woman]

It really does need thinking about why someone with ME would choose to either pay to see SW as a private patient or in a NHS setting. There's something strange about this idea.

I think most of us forget how trusting and naive we were about doctors before we got ME.

Most of the general public, unless they have experience to the contrary, will completely swallow what they are told. Especially if they are told this is the top man to see, there are very few experts and he's one of the best, he has extensive experience and research etc.

It's only when the harm has been done and they've found themselves caught in his clutches will many of them realize it's too late. The BPS narrative on their records will imply the patient is not a credible witness to their own state and any reluctance or rejection of treatment on their part is simply a symptom of their abnormal belief system.

How most predators work.

 

[chrisb]

My guess is that they are coming from a mental health stream and think that they have a mental or stress problem.

He did always say that most of his patients believed that their illness had a psychological component and that it was only those who maintained the belief that the illness had a physical cause who refused to get better. It seems quite possible that the observation was valid, though he does not seem to have explored the full range of reasonable inferences.

 

[James Morris-Lent]

Gotcha. Personally, I find that too broad a definition, but I agree it's probably what the BPS crowd means.

The problem, really, is that psyche implies spirit or soul as much as mind. That's where the slipperiness comes in.

Absolutely. The term that comes to mind that always irritates me is 'Psychological Component'. As in 'Do you deny that CFS/ME could have a psychological component?' -- Like, what do you mean by psychological component? They mean to insinuate 'caused and perpetuated by thoughts', but when critics respond to that meaning they fall back on the broadest definition in order to attempt to make the critics look totally unreasonable.

What the BPS crowd mean, I think, is that CFS is psychosomatic.

It's in a different category from
1. organic disorders such as endogenous depression which have a biochemical basis.

And different from
2. reactive depression, which as I understand it is depressive symptoms brought on by adverse life circumstances. Similarly burnout, stress, anxiety, ptsd.

3. Psychosomatic, on the other hand does not depend either on biochemistry or external circumstances but on wrong thinking which they say can be reversed with CBT to teach us right thinking.

I think psychiatrists claim understanding of all three categories of 'mental illness'. When in fact, biomedical treatment is needed for 1, social support for 2, and skilled counselling may help with 1 and 2., and 3. doesn't exist.

How's that for a simplistic overview of mental illness!

I think 'Psychosomatic' runs into the same issue as 'Psychological' in that it is more of a vague observational truism rather than a causal assertion (such as 'Psycho-genic/-perpetuated'). The term 'Disease' itself implies suffering, which is a psychological phenomenon. Pretty much everything could defensibly be called psychosomatic except for things that cause rapid death and are not linked to behaviors. I'm not saying it's good usage, but we can see that the BPS people are attempting to expand into... pretty much everything.


Anyway using these vague words allows BPS goofs to go around in circles on twitter or whatever medium. In the instances where people bother engaging with them I would suggest trying to stick to more specific terms. Psychogenic is already a term people use although it is not quite what PACE has in mind; Psycho-perpetuated does not have a nice ring to it but it conveys with good precision the theory behind PACE, so I would suggest it as a neologism that could help when one unfortunately feels the need to engage with BPS ideas and rhetoric.

 

[Sean]

How most predators work.

The BPS cult are ambush predators. The weakness of that tactic is that once they have been spotted they have no cover.

The term that comes to mind that always irritates me is 'Psychological Component'. As in 'Do you deny that CFS/ME could have a psychological component?'

Have you stopped beating your wife?

 

[Invisible Woman]

The BPS cult are ambush predators. The weakness of that tactic is that once they have been spotted they have no cover.

The problem is many people don't spot them until it's too late and the system colludes with them to keep it that way.

So many of us diagnosed since the "yuppie flu" headlines would have simply believed that narrative, desperate to get better and relieved there was nothing "serious" wrong with them gone along with treatment that is tantamount to abuse in an exertion intolerant ME patient.

There was the smear campaign against other patients who were "militant activists" and if a charity was mentioned it was usually AfME, whose poor advice could be seen as collusion with BPS ers from a certain angle.

Even now the charities' (because at times MEA has been guilty too) wishy washy advice leaves the newly ill and diagnosed vulnerable.

The whole landscape of the newly diagnosed has been configured to mask the predation by the BPSers. Some people might manage to dodge the ambush or survive the mauling, but that's often down to dumb luck.