Feasibility of group-based acceptance & commitment therapy for adolescents (AHEAD) w/multiple functional somatic syndromes, 2020,Hansen Kallesøe et al

Full title: Feasibility of group-based acceptance and commitment therapy for adolescents (AHEAD) with multiple functional somatic syndromes: a pilot study

Open access, https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-020-02862-z

 

Will it ever end?

 

Insurance companies:

Okay, so we've given the patients something cheap yet also worse than nothing in the form of CBT. But how do we further reduce the payout to these awfully sick patients?

Psychiatrists:

Okay, imagine CBT.... but... in A GROUP SETTING!!

Insurance companies:

 

I have concerns as to a bigger picture of where this might lead with regards to programming young people. As psych experiments go I think in time this will be a Frankenstein.

From the paper:

 

Are the psychiatrists trained to see their own thoughts as merely thoughts, rather than acting on them as if they represent the truth?

If not, why not?

 

Do these people get a discount for every 100 identical trials they run? There have literally been hundreds of identical trials of this. The substance is entirely irrelevant and this methodology would show the same results no matter what goes in there, the details of which are, of course, never provided. This kind of "treatment" is commonly used, has been for years. Why is there a need for a "feasibility" trial for something that is commonly used in practice and has been touted as effective for decades despite it being known that there is no evidence for it, hence the endless cycle of doing the same pilot trials over and over again? How does no one find that completely absurd?

Again, there is no crisis of replicability in clinical psychology or in evidence-based medicine. In fact there is too much replication, hundreds of identical experiments, always with the same methods and substance, always with the same outcomes. None of them are valid. It is a crisis of validity, of pseudoscience so thoroughly dominating the field that the incentive system is over poorly replicating things endlessly, always within the same bounds of mixing up a handful of concepts with the tiniest variations.

This is a jobs program for people who can't science. Why is that even a thing?

 

This is quite concerning.

It seems that the intervention consisted of psychoeducation for adolescents to teach them about central sensitization and peripherally increased bodily stress response as an overall explanation of the development and maintenance of what the authors call 'Bodily Distress Syndrome' (BDS).

BDS is not a diagnosis used by researchers in other countries and there is simply insufficient evidence for central sensitization or increased bodily stress response in these patients. I'm usually cautious in my criticism but this really looks like pseudoscience. I'm not sure if the authors realize what impact it can have if someone with medical authority proclaims these theories. Not only the patient but also their relatives might believe them to be true.

So it looks like the authors are spreading dubious illness beliefs, which is remarkable because they write about 'maladaptive illness behaviours and perceptions' as if they know what behaviors and perceptions are good or bad for patients. They write:

Haven't read all these references but it looks like these are merely association studies that didn't come close to proving the things the authors claim.

The therapy itself consists of things that remind me of bogus commercial health programs such as promoting self compassion and kindness to your self, connecting with an inner sweet spot, writing a kind letter to yourself etc.

 

What we have is essentially an attempt to propagate a fantasy.

They can't really come out and say it - maybe many can't actually see it - but the pseudoscience is so thin that it can only be seen a haphazard and permutable cover.

 

Sadly ACT is the new buzzword.
Add to ACES and adolescence has got even less going for it.
There never seems to be understanding of asymmetrical power balances / influence of peers/ impact of being held responsible for your illness.

Coming to a therapist near you.

 

Nina E. Steinkopf has looked further into this research project and found several things not adding up:

A million dollar industry of wasted

Quote:
By claiming that stress is a disease factor despite the fact that they didn’t find that, the researchers strengthen the perception of psychosomatics as a cause. Insurance companies can then refer to these research articles when they reject claims for compensation.

 

Similar excuse as QMUL's BS answer that they don't have the resources to get the PACE data. Misbehavior going unpunished leads to more misbehavior. Funny how that works.

It's going to be very hard to justify there not being giant lawsuits for all of this. It's even more nakedly corrupt than what the tobacco industry did, but only because once the tobacco industry's cover up was exposed it could no longer be maintained because people care about all the deaths it was causing. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing about it. They are, in effect, condoning and nurturing it, giving aid and comfort to institutional violence.