Gupta amygdala training program for ME/CFS, FM and Long Covid - news and discussion

This is a nightmare.

Participation is gonna ruin the health physical, of any participants who are mod+ affected and not already on an up swing.

It’s gonna ruin the mental health of anyone who does improve at the same time as participating leaving them potentially attributing this to the program, grandiose fantasies of a powerful mind that can overcome all obstacles. If they are lucky enough to maintain this improvement, then there will be a danger to the mental health of other patients who are not in recovery and come into contact with their over optimistic assessment of the recuperative potential of the program. Spreading misinformation at best, victim blaming ideology and material harm at worst.
 
Trish said:
I've just looked up that study. It's a complete joke:
A Mind-Body Technique for Symptoms Related to Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue
Abstract and Figures
Context
A novel mind–body approach (amygdala retraining) is hypothesized to improve symptoms related to fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.
Objective
To examine the use of a mind–body approach for improving symptoms related to fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.
Design
This was a single-blind, randomized controlled trial.
Setting
The study was conducted in a tertiary-care fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue clinic.
Patients
Patients with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, or both were included.
Interventions
Patients were randomly assigned to receive amygdala retraining along with standard care or standard care alone. Standard care involved attending a 1.5-day multidisciplinary program. The amygdala retraining group received an additional 2.5-hour training course in which the key tools and techniques adapted from an existing program were taught to the patient. A home-study video course and associated text were provided to supplement the on-site program. Both groups received telephone calls twice a month to answer questions related to technique and to provide support.
Main Outcome Measures
Validated self-report questionnaires related to general health, well-being, and symptoms, including Short Form-36, Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile, Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire.
Results
Of the 44 patients randomly assigned who completed baseline assessments, 21 patients completed the study (14 in the standard care group and 7 in the study group). Median age was 48 years (range, 27-56 years), and female subjects comprised 91% of the group.
Analyses demonstrated statistically significant improvements in scores for physical health, energy, pain, symptom distress, and fatigue in patients who received the amygdala retraining compared with standard care.

Flow of patients through the study.
…

. Mixed-Model Repeated-Measures ANOVA Across Both Groups from Baseline (T1) to Follow-Up (T2)
…

Change in scores from baseline to follow-up for amygdala retraining (n ϭ 7, dashed lines) and standard care (n ϭ 14, solid lines) groups on several measures. ( A ) Short Form-36 (SF-36) physical health score. ( B ) SF-36 energy score. ( C ) SF-36 pain score. ( D ) Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile (MYMOP-2) score. Score reversed. ( E ) Multi-Dimensional Fatigue Inventory (MDFI) –Motivation score. ( F ) MDFI–Activity score. ( G ) Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) score.
…

. Simple Effects Tests for Changes in Outcome Measures From Baseline to Follow-Up
…
Click to expand...

It should be illegal.
 
This bit makes complete nonsense of the so called study:

Of the 44 patients randomly assigned who completed baseline assessments, 21 patients completed the study (14 in the standard care group and 7 in the study group).

So fewer that one third of those treated with Gupta blah blah actually completed it.

All this so called success claimed on the back of 7 people, and we don't even know whether they had CFS, CF or FM.

Oops, no it gets worse, the abstract is not wholly honest. Here from the full paper:

Of 183 patients invited to participate in this study, 126 declined.
The 57 patients who agreed to participate were randomly as-
signed to 1 of the 2 groups in the study (Figure 1). Of these, only
21 patients completed all study-related procedures and measures
(“completers”). Therefore, all analyses are determined on the
basis of these 21 patients for whom all data points were available.
Click to expand...
57 who agreed to participate
13 dropped out before the first stage
leaving 44 participants.

And more revelations:
Of the 21 completers: 3 had CF, 3 had FM and CF, 15 had FM

Inclusion criteria were as follows a confirmed diagnosis of
fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and/or chronic fatigue syndrom
Click to expand...

The patients all had CBT/GET type of 'usual care' and the Gupta group had Gupta stuff as well.
 
Revel said:
Just looked up the Lead Researcher's Bio. Dr Loren Toussaint is a psychologist, regarded as a Christian "forgiveness expert" who has been a proponent of Gupta since at least 2012.
Click to expand...

Is that the kind of forgiveness expert that tells abuse victims to forgive their abusers, no matter what, even if the abuser never even admitted the harm? Because then I have no more questions.

OK, according to this article, yes, he is that type.
 
A good blog, surveying the territory, from Long Covid Advocacy
Tin Foil Hat Territory? The Gupta Program, the Lightning Process and the BPS in Long Covid and ME.
Brain retraining and psychosomatics often claim that if you aren’t cured you didn’t try hard enough. There is serious patient danger with these models. It roots the aetiology of the illness in the false beliefs and emotional trauma or stress of the patient.

The Gupta Program and Lightning Process involve visualizing yourself well and interrupting thoughts about your illness with hand signals and phrases such as “soften and flow” and “stop, stop, stop”. This is clearly an attempt to treat a physical illness with psychological methods. It is therefore the efficacy of the patient in carrying out these procedures that determines the cure. So the cause and the cure are down to the agency of the patient.

No one blames an individual for getting cancer or MS or gives them psychological techniques primarily to treat and cure them or blames them for not recovering if they do not rewire their amygdala.

In Anthropology, this is termed “magical thinking” and discussed at length by Levi-Strauss. In medicine, it is often called ‘mindset medicine’. This is where changing our thinking will change our reality and, therefore, our illness. This should not be a method in modern medicine and is absurd. If this were the case, then all illnesses or difficult situations would easily disappear. Yet, this is the stance that the Wessely School took through the treatment of CBT, as did the NLP and Brain Retraining of the Gupta Program and Lightning Process.
Click to expand...
 
No one blames an individual for getting cancer or MS or gives them psychological techniques primarily to treat and cure them or blames them for not recovering if they do not rewire their amygdala.
Click to expand...
Heh, not quite true. It's not nearly as bad, but sickness is almost always awful and features a lot of that. The difference is that where it matters, they're treated mostly seriously, at least in most cases.

But I've seen enough people with cancer saying they're sick of hearing this stuff to see the pattern. Magical thinking about health is probably older than religion itself, it's always been a feature of human intelligence, and with medicine embracing a lot of it in general, right now is pretty much the worst it's ever been, with the pandemic having made everything even worse than it was right before, and that was the worst it's ever been at this point.

And of course one reason why people with 'respectable' diseases also get this is in part because of how it's abused with us. So it's bad for everyone, but unfortunately thrutiness matters more than truth, even in science. Human lives are cheap.
 
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