Does the Lightning Process Training Programme Reduce Chronic Fatigue in Adolescents and Young Adult Cancer Survivors? 2021, Fauske, Reme et al

And the evidence for this? Nil. The evidence of PACE is that ignoring chronic fatigue doesn't make it go away, and the main lesson of forty years of ME (mis)management is that the best thing for managing ME fatigue (and other symptoms) is to rest as required. Amazing - millions of years of evolution, and it seems that resting is often a useful response to fatigue, just like taking your hand out of a flame is a good idea when you feel it burning.

Assuming chronic fatigue is a "false alarm" makes as much sense as the local garage offering to turn off the "chronic warning light" on your dashboard because they don't understand the computer codes on your car. Absent convincing evidence that the warning light is malfunctioning, most people in the latter situation would use their common sense and find a more expert garage.

 

I read this and found myself wondering if it was an improvement over previous times when a child feeling fatigue after cancer was called ME (Munchausen's) by Proxy and childcare proceedings were started. They said the parents had enjoyed the attention they got with having a sick child so they wanted to keep the child sick so it would not stop.

 

Something being a "key" assumption doesn't make it any more evidence based, than just a plain old everyday assumption.

Whatever happened to the concept that assumptions should be challenged?

Assumption is defined in the Cambridge dictionary as " something that you accept as true without question or proof."

 

There will probably be evidence for the asssumption. These days, who worries if there is more evidence against it?

 

“Prior to attending the three-day LP course, the participants had a telephone conversation with the course instructor to clarify any issues they might have and to allow the instructor to assess whether they were sufficiently motivated to proceed with the intervention. The latter was based on a standard LP checklist.“

Those questions that you have to answer, to see if you are “ready” to take the LP are questions about wether you are ready to “take responsibility” for your health and wether you are willing to put in the effort with LP, and if you believe the LP can solve your problems.

How cruel to ask young cancer patients if they are willing to take responsibility for their health, as if it should be their responsibility at all.

And then being told they don’t have pain, they are doing pain and can chose to stop doing pain if they want to. As if they chose cancer.

I cannot fathom who thought this was a good idea and how this passed ethical evaluation.

 

https://radforsk.no/our-story/

INVESTMENTS AND COMMERSIALISATION
Today Radforsk Investeringsstiftelse acts as a dynamic player working in every part of the research–to–commercialization eco-system – all the way from initial research results to listing companies. Since its establishment, Radforsk Investeringsstiftelse has invested in and been an active owner of more than twenty companies, and currently holds 13 companies.

Co-investors:

https://radforsk.no/contact-2-2/

For example:

http://www.birkventure.com/

https://healthcap.com/


This is business using people's health as an opportunity to expand and grow wealth.

 

The LP coach they used in this trial has this on her website:

On her linkedin the bio says (google translate):

I didn’t know it was legal to claim the LP is effective for treating diseases.

 

@rainy

Well put. It's shocking, especially in this context for researchers to suss out whether young cancer patients are willing to take responsibility for their health. Which seems to imply it's their fault they had cancer. That they were irresponsible, and developed cancer. And, that they are irresponsible to have post cancer fatigue.

What's the point of ethics committees?

 

Also, regarding responsibility, the "key assumption" of LP practitioners is that if the clients fails to get better, the client was not genuinely taking responsibility for their health/life. This in the LP practitioner's view leaves the onus strictly on the client's shoulders.

 

What line does this "treatment" have to cross before it is curtailed? Or is there no limit?

 

Six month follow up found improvement. A confounding variable could be that the fatigue dissipated due to regaining strength in the usual way, and not from LP.

 

My understanding is that it is illegal under the Trade Descriptions Act in the UK, and that this was formally recognised following a court case. The legal situation may be different in other countries.

Presumably the recent research including this study may have the effect of muddying the waters on this.

[corrected typos]

 

A number of studies of ME, eg PACE, found improvement on long term follow up in their ‘no treatment’ controls. Unless you eliminate bias and have meaningful controls none of these studies tell us anything.

 

Yes, exactly.

 

To clarify--this is the Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy, published by the Romanian Association of Experiential Psychology. I'm not sure this would be considered a high-quality source.

 

Edzard Ernst added a short comment on his blog article on the Lightning Process from last year:

"the ‘study’ hardly deserves any discussion; no control group!"

https://edzardernst.com/2020/06/the...-unproven-hyped-and-expensive/#comment-133138

Code:

https://twitter.com/EdzardErnst/status/1426931580690436100

 

Most children and young adults are irresponsible, it's more or less a defining characteristic.

Most children and young adults do not have cancer.

Therefore.....taking responsibility would surely increase their risks of cancer (according to LP 'logic')?

(LP logic appears to completely refute the idea that cancer and responsibility may, in fact, have absolutely no connection with each other)

 

I agree - but how much info is given to the people who do the approval on this type of work? Perhaps they know nothing about LP apart from the fact that no drugs are involved? Since CBT and other psychological treatments are considered safe by most people perhaps the assumption is made (without any proof) that LP is equally "safe". After all, LP is trademarked and confidential, as far as I'm aware, so how would the approvers know anything about it?

 

I wonder how many journals have to say no before researchers decide to send it to a journal from "the Romanian Association of Experiential Psychology". I'm guessing A LOT.

 

Silje E. Reme, one of the authors, was also one of the professors involved in the infamous LP trial that was declared unethical this spring. She's also published this qualitative study on it in 2013, written in cooperation with our old friend Trudy C. This older study was also on "young people" (14-26 year olds).

I wonder if they target young people because they are more likely to give them the results they want? Adults tend to have more faith in their own judgements, so they're more difficult to manipulate and will not so readily accept narratives that contradict their own lived experience. Kids, teenagers and young adults however, are probably more likely to go along with whatever a supposed authority declares as the truth. And thus the effect size, especially when only measured subjectively, is efficiently inflated, giving the impression of an intervention that actually helps people.

EDIT: She's also written about it in a journal that targets Norwegian clinical psychologists. Here's an English version from Google Translate. She says that after publication she got a phone call from an upset Phil Parker, because he didn't like some aspects of the article.