Lightning Process - discussion thread

Peter Trewhitt said:
This seems to be becoming a feature of the Lightening Process, if we are seeing a breakaway coach in Norway, as well as in New Zealand.
Click to expand...
A highly undesirable feature. We now have the breakaway and an original LP coach running workshops at a GP continuing education conference* - or should that be "education" - a sneaky double act :arghh::arghh::arghh: Somebody please make it stop!!!

Mel Abbott: https://whova.com/embedded/speaker_detail/DSQ8e1dyB4uPPnrqCzvS8chcCDu2rY4akjC1Rt2SB9o=/20077978/

Jenny Oliver: https://whova.com/embedded/speaker_detail/DSQ8e1dyB4uPPnrqCzvS8chcCDu2rY4akjC1Rt2SB9o=/20077978/

*http://www.gpcme.co.nz/programme.php (the workshop programme is in the pdf downloadable from this page)
 
Maybe send the organisers of the conference a link to the Norwegian website with patients' stories of the harm LP has done them.

I am shocked that doctors would consider for a moment that LP is of value for anyone and wouldn't see the harm it does. Do they even know what it is?

It's like a mass delusion.
 
Trish said:
Maybe send the organisers of the conference a link to the Norwegian website with patients' stories of the harm LP has done them.

I am shocked that doctors would consider for a moment that LP is of value for anyone and wouldn't see the harm it does. Do they even know what it is?

It's like a mass delusion.
Click to expand...
The organisers have already been made of aware of the NICE recommendation against LP as well as of the patient surveys showing deterioration for many LP participants (not the Norwegian site though). So far they're refusing to take any action. Which tells us all we need to know about what they truly think about ME.

Below is the info based on which doctors sign up to the workshops. It really defies belief anyone, let alone someone who studied what an evidence base is supposed to be, falls for it.
Jenny Oliver's speaker bio said:
Jenny Oliver
Practitioner of Psychoneuroimmunology

Description
I practice in the field of psychoneuroimmunology. Using the Lightning Process® training (LP), I have observed significant change in clients who were stuck in chronic illness and issues, including but not limited to, chronic fatigue, pain, anxiety and depression. Over 30 years teaching at all levels, I have loved all things brain – from designing the successful children’s Spring® brain, mind, body programme to teaching those with special needs and neuro divergence. I have a full teacher’s practicing certificate, Batchelors degree in Education and a Masters in Coaching, NLP and Anatomy Physiology from the Phil Parker Training Institute in London. I have extended the work of the Lightning Process® into new programmes for children, parents, teenagers, and women’s health issues. I am an educator, known for my innovative teaching and coaching style and recognising the potential and possibilities within everyone. I run programmes around New Zealand and online. My passion includes delivering talks on this important topic to a wide variety of institutions and groups.

WS#166: The Lighting Process Training - Evidence Based Option for Patients Who are 'Stuck"

Time for something completely different.

The changes I see in my clients who train in the Lightning Process® are phenomenal. Yes, you do have another option to offer patients who are stuck in chronic illness such as chronic fatigue, pain, anxiety and depression. Your patients can be sustainably well again and the research, together with my own experience, supports this.

The Lightning Process® training (LP), teaches people to adjust the messaging throughout their brain and body and to fire and wire up useful, new neural pathways, to repair and reset all the systems in the body.

The LP is based on the studies in psychoneuroimmunology, being the link between the central nervous system, endocrine system and immune system and the brain-mind-body connection.

During this inspiring, fresh new look at health options for chronic illness, you will appreciate:

• The latest research on the LP, including Randomised Controlled Trials.
• Why the Lightning Process works and why it is relevant to you, your patients and practice? Who is it for and not for?
• How to apply neuroplasticity, language and brain techniques to overcome illness.
• Techniques you can use to enable, empower and give hope to patients achieve better health outcomes.
• A practical strategy for changing habitual, non-useful patterns into new ones for energy, health and wellbeing

This will be an inspiring, fresh and practical approach to patient management.
Click to expand...
Mel Abbott's speaker bio said:
Mel Abbott
Ms
Certified NLP Master Practitioner, Empower Therapies

Description
<p>I am passionate about providing long term sustainable solutions to chronic illness through utilizing mind-body techniques.</p><p>After 11 years of chronic fatigue syndrome (following a head injury), I suddenly recovered in just two weeks by attending a three day NLP mind-body programme in London.</p><p>I founded Empower Therapies nine years ago and have been seeing around 80-90% of my clients resolve a wide array of chronic health problems, despite being ill for an average of 9.66 years. The largest client groups are fatigue, pain, anxiety, depression and digestive disorders.</p><p>BSc (psych), Dip Clin Hyp, NLP, Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, President of NZANLP</p><p>For more information, visit <a href="http://www.empowertherapies.co.nz" rel="nofollow">www.empowertherapies.co.nz</a></p>

WS#137: How to Resolve Chronic Fatigue, Long Covid, Chronic Pain
Mel Abbott has been using mind-body techniques for a decade to resolve a wide range of chronic health issues, chronic fatigue and pain being her largest client groups. 80-90% of her clients report recovery. Recently, she had two long covid clients, both wheelchair bound and with severe cognitive disruption nine months after having covid. Both have made a full recovery and are exercising and working full time again. Mel will talk about the principles behind her work, offer suggestions to incorporate into general practice sessions and share case studies with you.
Click to expand...
[The odd and unprofessional formatting is on the original page.]Links in post #101.
 
The Lightning Process® training (LP), teaches people to adjust the messaging throughout their brain and body and to fire and wire up useful, new neural pathways, to repair and reset all the systems in the body.
Click to expand...
This is worse than the dumbest stuff about detoxifying, which at least has some loose basis in reality. The creep of alternative medicine and pseudoscientific beliefs has actually produced worse quackery than most pseudoscience out there.

This is nothing less than dereliction of duty. Medicine is actually even more dysfunctional than it appears and that's saying a lot.
 
rvallee said:
This is nothing less than dereliction of duty.
Click to expand...
I agree. It has been pointed out to the conveyor of this CME, by local patient groups, that LP and it’s off-shoot The Switch, is a pseudoscience, against NICE Guidelines and has the potential to cause harm.

I have seen Mel Abbott’s online interview by the NZ Doctor magazine when she presented at a GP conference a few years ago - she likes to promote herself as an ally to GP’s by saying how burdensome we and all our symptoms are and how hard it must be for them.:wtf: (Sorry can’t find the link)

Unfortunately she has convinced an orthopaedic surgeon of her wonders…and he is now promoting her to ACC (who provide money for treatment of health conditions following accidents) and to the medical community. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/he...y-from-chronic-illness-back-to-perfect-health

And despite some good advocacy in NZ on TV and national press promoting resting and pacing by local ME/long covid experts Prof Tate and Dr Brooks, they have ignored them for two LP’ers!:banghead:
 
Jenny Oliver
Practitioner of Psychoneuroimmunology

Description
I practice in the field of psychoneuroimmunology. Using the Lightning Process® training (LP), I have observed significant change in clients who were stuck in chronic illness and issues, including but not limited to, chronic fatigue, pain, anxiety and depression. Over 30 years teaching at all levels, I have loved all things brain – from designing the successful children’s Spring® brain, mind, body programme to teaching those with special needs and neuro divergence. I have a full teacher’s practicing certificate, Batchelors degree in Education and a Masters in Coaching, NLP and Anatomy Physiology from the Phil Parker Training Institute in London. I have extended the work of the Lightning Process® into new programmes for children, parents, teenagers, and women’s health issues. I am an educator, known for my innovative teaching and coaching style and recognising the potential and possibilities within everyone.
Click to expand...
Woo on steroids.

• The latest research on the LP, including Randomised Controlled Trials.
Click to expand...
Either she does not understand what controlled means, or she is a liar.
 
And as if all the above wasn't bad enough, Mel has also started teaching medical students at Otago University - that's the same uni Prof Tate is at. So the students get a lecture from him and a lecture from Mel o_O:confused:. I'm aware complaints have been made but am not privvy to the details or outcome.

Aaaand Richie Barnett, the "face of ANZMES", has gone and become a life coach and NLP practitioner. His claims are much more modest than those of Mel and the LP practitioners but he trades on his ME connection and that's problematic. https://www.richiebarnett.co.nz/about-1

:banghead::banghead::banghead:
 
My stepsister mentioned LP a few years ago as she had a friend/ colleague at a former employer who had recovered via LP.

I asked her to check if this person was back to pre ME/ CFS lifestyle .

Turns out they had recovered, but from a blood disorder . They had never had ME/ CFS.

Misdiagnosis ( up to 40% in UK historically) , will also play a big part.
 
From Mel Abbot's website —

HOW CAN YOU HELP YOURSELF?
  1. Get your hope back about recovery being possible by watching some of the movies on this website. Just knowing that there is an answer to chronic fatigue can help people to relax and calm their stress response and get a bit of a lift in energy levels.
  2. Start actively reducing your stress response by doing things like meditation, breathing exercises, and activities that you find particularly relaxing.
  3. Every time you catch yourself thinking “I’m tired”, immediately make yourself think about something else instead. If you re-route your brain often enough, you can start creating changes to those faulty neural pathways.
  4. People with CFS believe that they need to conserve energy because there is not enough in the bank, so they lie around a lot and use very flat voice and body language. This is a great way to make yourself feel tired. Try doing the opposite. Stand up and cheer! Clap! Do the triumph pose with your hands raised high above your head. Go for a short walk. Using energetic body language helps your body to activate the energy that is already there from the food that you have eaten that day.
 
SNT Gatchaman said:
From Mel Abbot's website —

HOW CAN YOU HELP YOURSELF?
  1. Get your hope back about recovery being possible by watching some of the movies on this website. Just knowing that there is an answer to chronic fatigue can help people to relax and calm their stress response and get a bit of a lift in energy levels.
  2. Start actively reducing your stress response by doing things like meditation, breathing exercises, and activities that you find particularly relaxing.
  3. Every time you catch yourself thinking “I’m tired”, immediately make yourself think about something else instead. If you re-route your brain often enough, you can start creating changes to those faulty neural pathways.
  4. People with CFS believe that they need to conserve energy because there is not enough in the bank, so they lie around a lot and use very flat voice and body language. This is a great way to make yourself feel tired. Try doing the opposite. Stand up and cheer! Clap! Do the triumph pose with your hands raised high above your head. Go for a short walk. Using energetic body language helps your body to activate the energy that is already there from the food that you have eaten that day.
Click to expand...
Tripe!!!!
 
SNT Gatchaman said:
From Mel Abbot's website —

HOW CAN YOU HELP YOURSELF?
  1. Get your hope back about recovery being possible by watching some of the movies on this website. Just knowing that there is an answer to chronic fatigue can help people to relax and calm their stress response and get a bit of a lift in energy levels.
  2. Start actively reducing your stress response by doing things like meditation, breathing exercises, and activities that you find particularly relaxing.
  3. Every time you catch yourself thinking “I’m tired”, immediately make yourself think about something else instead. If you re-route your brain often enough, you can start creating changes to those faulty neural pathways.
  4. People with CFS believe that they need to conserve energy because there is not enough in the bank, so they lie around a lot and use very flat voice and body language. This is a great way to make yourself feel tired. Try doing the opposite. Stand up and cheer! Clap! Do the triumph pose with your hands raised high above your head. Go for a short walk. Using energetic body language helps your body to activate the energy that is already there from the food that you have eaten that day.
Click to expand...
How. Patronising.

Stop telling people what i believe. And what my voice and body language are. You never met me! And you're Wrong.
 
People with CFS believe that they need to conserve energy because there is not enough in the bank, so they lie around a lot and use very flat voice and body language. This is a great way to make yourself feel tired. Try doing the opposite. Stand up and cheer! Clap! Do the triumph pose with your hands raised high above your head. Go for a short walk. Using energetic body language helps your body to activate the energy that is already there from the food that you have eaten that day.
Click to expand...

"People with CFS believe that they need to conserve energy because there is not enough in the bank"

So this sounds like someone read a CBT explanation on how ME/CFS works and came away with false understanding. The explanation being roughly that "it's merely a belief, and if they ignore the belief all will be well".

The exhaustion is not merely a belief. It's also a sensation in the body, sometimes overwhelming so that I can do little but lay on the bed and rest until it improves. Every day I live confirms that there is a relationship between my level of exhaustion and how active I am. I've not noticed that good mood makes a large difference to my exhaustion. I don't feel exhausted all the time either, I and use the moments where I have more energy to do what is needed or what I enjoy. What helps somewhat is rest and more and better sleep.

Exhaustion is also just one problem. Another other problem is that my body has only a limited ability to tolerate being in a more active state, which can mean physical activity but also socializing and having a lot of fun. Stressing the body in this manner will lead to postexertional malaise. I really do not need any friendly tips on how to stimulate my mood because that is not an important limitation. What I need is to find some way to allow my body to tolerate being in a more active state, physically or mentally.

The idea that I can think myself out of being tired is absurd. When I say I'm exhausted, it's not an a metaphor for an emotional state. Of course my emotional state is also different when exhausted but it's not driving this state.

I suspect that these people have no idea what the fatigue of chronic illness is like because they've never experienced it. I never experienced it until I got the illness.
 
Last edited:
TiredSam said:
I have been lucky enough to be able to think myself a bit better over the years. One of the helpful thoughts I have had is to stay well away from the lightning process and any other such woo.
Click to expand...
That reminds me of a comment I recently came across, I can't remember by whom. They speculated that homeopathy was so popular back when it was invented at least in part because the crude medicine of the time as often as not made patients a whole lot worse than they were in the first place. So by comparison a "remedy" with zero effect looked really good. If a pwME was determined to try either the LP or homeopathy and couldn't be persuaded to drop both ideas I'd steer them towards the latter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom