Netflix "Afflicted" - ME included

[JenB]

There are a subset of patients who did have inflammation in the brain.
But the vast majority of people with chronic fatigue don't.

There may not be sufficient proof of the positive, but I've never seen positive proof of the negative. (Is there? I checked with a neuroscientist and he said there is not.)

I wish doctors understood logic, probability, statistics and causal inference. I wish the public (and TV documentary producers) didn't mistake doctors for scientists.

I would never have put a statement like this in a film because it's factually wrong. And that's the challenge with experts in documentaries: they often misspeak. But you still need to be able to make sure that everything they say can be cited. If not, you can't include it, no matter how useful the scene may be otherwise. This doctor misspoke, but they didn't have the technical expertise nor the rigorous fact-checking process to catch/care.

 

[Lily Valley]

There may not be sufficient proof of the positive, but I've never seen positive proof of the negative. (Is there? I checked with a neuroscientist and he said there is not.)

I wish doctors understood logic, probability, statistics and causal inference. I wish the public (and TV documentary producers) didn't mistake doctors for scientists.

I would never have put a statement like this in a film because it's factually wrong. And that's the challenge with experts in documentaries: they often misspeak. But you still need to be able to make sure that everything they say can be cited. If not, you can't include it, no matter how useful the scene may be otherwise. This doctor misspoke, but they didn't have the technical expertise nor the rigorous fact-checking process to catch/care.

And Dr Gordon works with integrative and functional therapies. From his website:

”Some patients may immediately benefit from intravenous therapies. Others may respond initially to energetic modalities, such as Frequency Specific Microcurrent or Photon Stimulation. Some patients may require antibiotics while, for others, herbal or homeopathic remedies may be more suitable. Everyone has different supplementation requirements, and needs to follow different detoxification strategies.”


“For Dr. Gordon, however, knowledge and understanding does not come primarily from research, but from interaction and direct experience with his patients. He is first and foremost a private practice physician. His deep respect for the biochemical individuality of his patients is at the heart of his approach.”

 

[Esther12]

Looks like there's a lot of dodginess being promoted on Dr Gordon's website. Was he in this series?

 

[Trish]

Looks like there's a lot of dodginess being promoted on Dr Gordon's website. Was he in this series?

He was shown visiting Jamison to assess and recommend treatment. They didn't get as far as what he recommended. They just said at the end that Jamison had decided to try his treatment without specifying what it was. He was the only one they didn't show trying all sorts of wacky treatments.

 

[Snowdrop]

Perhaps a look at the Producers credits might be illuminating.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8792570/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ql_1

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2086013/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr2

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3963599/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr3

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0517777/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr4 and so on . . .

The word I'd use is sensationalist.

 

[Inara]

Wow by episode 6 they really sink to a new low, this is narrated by doctors and partners over a sequence ending on a still of the featured participants including Jamison.

I wonder, "Is he imagining this to the point that it becomes real?"
Is this in her head? Is it psychosomatic?
There is emotional and psychological components.
Some of it's in her mind, I guess.

I do think there is a mind-body connection.
Illness is a dysfunction in the mind.
I view the distinction between the brain...
the body and the mind as artificial boundaries.
They're seamlessly connected to each other.
Patients who have emotional issues,
that can translate physically.
And we find that to be true especially for chronic illnesses.
Your brain is capable of producing physical,
real physical alterations by itself.
The notion of something being all in your head is interesting.
It's no less real than in the body.

Woah, würg,

This is esoterics. We're now living in times where esoterics are presentable.

I wonder how thoroughly people have thought through theories like that. I guess - not at all. It sounds so good.

(Note: I don't deny a certain connection between mind and body - mind is in the brain, right, so there must be a connection to the body? Mind in the meaning of consciousness, not in the meaning of psyche. But not to this extent.)

 

[rvallee]

Woah, würg,

This is esoterics. We're now living in times where esoterics are presentable.

I wonder how thoroughly people have thought through theories like that. I guess - not at all. It sounds so good.

(Note: I don't deny a certain connection between mind and body - mind is in the brain, right, so there must be a connection to the body? Mind in the meaning of consciousness, not in the meaning of psyche. But not to this extent.)

I'll believe it when I see the opposite: when someone uses their mind to raise their body into a state of hyper-health independent of anything else. That is: someone sedentary, eating a horrible diet and otherwise doing everything wrong health-wise but manage to remain fully healthy by the power of their mind to overcome the crap they are putting their body through.

It's the height of intellectual dishonesty to argue such a point one way but never bother to falsify it using the opposite approach, that if it is possible for the mind to make one sick despite having a healthy body, than it must be possible for a mind to make themselves healthy despite having a unhealthy body.

Mindfulness is a serious reversal of everything we have learned from science. It's real but it's not freaking magic like too many imply. There is way too much magical thinking in modern medicine. For all the flack that physicians give to alternative medicine, and I agree with most of it, there is a huge credibility gap in dismissing the magical thinking that pervades much of it when modern medicine still falls hook, line and sinker for it in its scientific blind spots.

I'm sick of the Freud of the gaps. It's intellectually interesting but plain malpractice to actually create clinical guidelines out of it. Lowering the bar for evidence is the absolute worst way to go about "breaking the biomedical bubble". These are exactly the kind of people who would have been snake oil peddlers a few decades ago, touting tinctures and asbestos baths or whatever thing people managed to sell as medicine back in the day.

 

[JenB]

I'll believe it when I see the opposite: when someone uses their mind to raise their body into a state of hyper-health independent of anything else. That is: someone sedentary, eating a horrible diet and otherwise doing everything wrong health-wise but manage to remain fully healthy by the power of their mind to overcome the crap they are putting their body through.

It's the height of intellectual dishonesty to argue such a point one way but never bother to falsify it using the opposite approach, that if it is possible for the mind to make one sick despite having a healthy body, than it must be possible for a mind to make themselves healthy despite having a unhealthy body.

Mindfulness is a serious reversal of everything we have learned from science. It's real but it's not freaking magic like too many imply. There is way too much magical thinking in modern medicine. For all the flack that physicians give to alternative medicine, and I agree with most of it, there is a huge credibility gap in dismissing the magical thinking that pervades much of it when modern medicine still falls hook, line and sinker for it in its scientific blind spots.

I'm sick of the Freud of the gaps. It's intellectually interesting but plain malpractice to actually create clinical guidelines out of it. Lowering the bar for evidence is the absolute worst way to go about "breaking the biomedical bubble". These are exactly the kind of people who would have been snake oil peddlers a few decades ago, touting tinctures and asbestos baths or whatever thing people managed to sell as medicine back in the day.

Can you please do a thread on Twitter on some of this? It's spot on.

I also think we should popularize the phrase: "Freud in the gaps."

 

[Inara]

I hope I understood you correctly @rvallee, and if I did I agree.

I'm a bit spiritualistic myself, but what I have to see nowadays, things like "filling the gaps with Freud" (I think that's what you also meant), is really problematic and unnatural. I am personally convinced by my (not overwhelming) experience that these things, like "a sick mind/psyche leads to a sick body", aren't reality. But I have no proof for or against it. Therefore, of course, I accept to a certain extent - as long as others don't have to suffer due to it - beliefs, convictions, ideologies etc.

 

[Hoopoe]

It's very telling that psychosomatic disorders begin where scientific knowledge ends. There doesn't seem to be any condition that is well understood scientifically and proven to be psychosomatic.

 

[Webdog]

I'll believe it when I see the opposite: when someone uses their mind to raise their body into a state of hyper-health independent of anything else.

I agree with you.

That said, this is exactly what is being claimed for those who practice "gratitude". That the mental state of gratitude improves your physical health. This positive psychology concept is now part of mainstream medicine in the US.

Be thankful: Science says gratitude is good for your health
https://www.today.com/health/be-thankful-science-says-gratitude-good-your-health-t58256

One recent study from the University of California San Diego’s School of Medicine found that people who were more grateful actually had better heart health, specifically less inflammation and healthier heart rhythms.

People who keep a gratitude journal have a reduced dietary fat intake — as much as 25 percent lower. Stress hormones like cortisol are 23 percent lower in grateful people. And having a daily gratitude practice could actually reduce the effects of aging to the brain.

Being thankful has such a profound effect because of the feelings that go along with it, Emmons said.

“Gratitude works because, as a way of perceiving and interpreting life, it recruits other positive emotions that have direct physical benefits, most likely through the immune system or endocrine system.”

Research shows that when we think about what we appreciate, the parasympathetic or calming part of the nervous system is triggered and that can have protective benefits on the body, including decreasing cortisol levels and perhaps increasing oxytocin, the bonding hormone involved in relationships that make us feel so good.

Can Gratitude Be Good for Your Heart?
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_gratitude_be_good_for_your_heart

How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain

Why Gratitude Is Good
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_gratitude_is_good


The Healing Power of Gratitude
https://permanente.org/healing-power-gratitude/

Gratitude and Well-Being: How Giving Thanks Can Rev Up Your Health and Happiness
https://share.kaiserpermanente.org/...-thanks-can-rev-up-your-health-and-happiness/
https://wa-health.kaiserpermanente.org/gratitude-benefits/

James Coyne gives the skeptical view:

Did a study show expressing gratitude improves your physical health?
https://www.coyneoftherealm.com/blo...ssing-gratitude-improves-your-physical-health


Links to studies:
The impact of a brief gratitude intervention on subjective well-being, biology and sleep
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105315572455

The Role of Gratitude in Spiritual Well-Being in Asymptomatic Heart Failure Patients
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/scp-0000050.pdf

 

[mango]

If you have Netflix you can go to Afflicted and give it a 'thumbs down'. That might help to let them know how people are feeling about the series.

That's not very effective, I'm afraid. It mainly tells the algorithm what other shows and movies to recommend (or not to recommend) to you.

A much more effective way to get your opinions across to Netflix would be to write them a message. One of the easiest ways to do this is to click on the link "Contact us" at the bottom of the page (if you're logged in on a computer) and then start a chat with them. I just did, it was super quick and easy.

 

[Joh]

Also possible to rate on IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8792570/

 

[Amw66]

I have not watched but i don' t think you can divorce this from the US context .

This is simply a continuation of roll out and roll back on a raft of areas that determines where the social conscience sits - and by doing this the context is reframed, so that the next roll out will have a different " acceptance"..

The narrative is being changed on a range of issues. Look to history, disability and mental illness have always been soft targets, because these groups are already " the other", less ground needs to be prepared .

 

[Esther12]

Responses on social media don't look great. Seems largely divided between healthy people thinking it's funny/ridiculous (though Jamison does seem to keep being singled out as someone who seems more sympathetic) and people with health problems thinking it's stigmatising.

Saw this twitter thread that makes it sound like that's the sort of drama the producers were going for, selecting people who others viewed suspiciously:

 

[rvallee]

Can you please do a thread on Twitter on some of this? It's spot on.

I also think we should popularize the phrase: "Freud in the gaps."

I did a few takes on it but still some reflection to get it right. I'll get it one day, if I get the old brain to be more cooperative.

 

[rvallee]

I hope I understood you correctly @rvallee, and if I did I agree.

I'm a bit spiritualistic myself, but what I have to see nowadays, things like "filling the gaps with Freud" (I think that's what you also meant), is really problematic and unnatural. I am personally convinced by my (not overwhelming) experience that these things, like "a sick mind/psyche leads to a sick body", aren't reality. But I have no proof for or against it. Therefore, of course, I accept to a certain extent - as long as others don't have to suffer due to it - beliefs, convictions, ideologies etc.

It's a take on the God of the gaps argument from natural philosophy (i.e. pre-science "science"), where any phenomenon that could not be explained was attributed to God. Particularly, that it has to be the explanation, not just that it could be.

I'm frankly astonished at how strongly this belief remains, that any illness that medicine cannot explain automatically has to be down to behavior or psychology. It relies on an assumption that everyone knows to be false: that medicine understands all the basics we will ever know and future research will only be incremental within what we already know.

The history of medicine is replete with those, from cold mothers causing autism to the modern "fear avoidance" that the psychosocial researchers are trying to push on us. My prediction is that 99% of psychosomatic illness will have an underlying biological explanation. It still leaves a 1% that is very real, but a mere fraction of what the current belief is.

 

[rvallee]

I agree with you.

That said, this is exactly what is being claimed for those who practice "gratitude". That the mental state of gratitude improves your physical health. This positive psychology concept is now part of mainstream medicine in the US.

Be thankful: Science says gratitude is good for your health
https://www.today.com/health/be-thankful-science-says-gratitude-good-your-health-t58256






Can Gratitude Be Good for Your Heart?
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_gratitude_be_good_for_your_heart

How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain

Why Gratitude Is Good
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_gratitude_is_good
View attachment 3915

The Healing Power of Gratitude
https://permanente.org/healing-power-gratitude/

Gratitude and Well-Being: How Giving Thanks Can Rev Up Your Health and Happiness
https://share.kaiserpermanente.org/...-thanks-can-rev-up-your-health-and-happiness/
https://wa-health.kaiserpermanente.org/gratitude-benefits/

James Coyne gives the skeptical view:

Did a study show expressing gratitude improves your physical health?
https://www.coyneoftherealm.com/blo...ssing-gratitude-improves-your-physical-health


Links to studies:
The impact of a brief gratitude intervention on subjective well-being, biology and sleep
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105315572455

The Role of Gratitude in Spiritual Well-Being in Asymptomatic Heart Failure Patients
https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/scp-0000050.pdf

Ironically enough, I find it important to be grateful of the good things in life and practice this naturally. It's nice and all but the much more likely explanation is that healthy people tend to find it easier to be grateful about good things in their life because they are less burdened by health problems.

Again reversing causality. I really thought science had hammered the importance of not doing that a long time ago. So many people are puzzled by perfectly normal behavior because of flawed assumptions. I see it so often in chronic pain specialists puzzling as to why people who have touched the hot stove want to avoid touching it again and find that totally abnormal behavior. Medical researchers really need to do better at empathy and recognizing normal behavior in abnormal circumstances.

 

[Sly Saint]

 

[Mfairma]

I'm frankly astonished at how strongly this belief remains, that any illness that medicine cannot explain automatically has to be down to behavior or psychology. It relies on an assumption that everyone knows to be false: that medicine understands all the basics we will ever know and future research will only be incremental within what we already know.

What is interesting is that this behavior, assuming unknown symptoms are due to mental illness, is so deeply rooted and widely prevalent among the medical community, but so unexamined that no one reflects on that faulty logic, that to make that assumption is to assume medical knowledge is perfect. I confronted a doctor on this point in the early years of being sick and the connection between the two quite obviously hadn't occurred to him, because he denied that doctors assume knowledge is perfect while continuing to assume this disease he knew nothing about must be psychological, or at least less significant than I conveyed. That the connection is never examined shows how culturally driven is the assumption.