Poll - Have You Ever Believed In Psychosomatic Illness?

[Mij]

I was never aware of it until I started reading forums where pwM.E/CFS started sharing their experiences.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

I had just forgotten my Ventolin inhaler that day;

I used to have one of these back in 1994, when I moved out to a house with no carpets in 2013 I cured my asthma. If no body hoovers the floor for a few months my asthma comes back.

The patients don't want to get better because they enjoy secondary gains so much.

See this Reddit post by a doctor: https://www.s4me.info/threads/interesting-reddit-threads.33977/#post-484101

 

[rvallee]

Definitely never in the way that it is used by experts.

I never really thought about it. Only heard about it vaguely and mostly never expected that experts could just make stuff up. Now having read from the actual people who did, I can clearly see that they are charlatans with extremely loose ethics, and that simply invalidates everything they say since everything they claim is based on their say-so. It's clearly based on absence of evidence, the god of the gaps, and massively misused by doctors in general as a way of getting patients out of their way, which is highly immoral.

But the conception I had of it was of a trivial thing, extremely far from how it's used. I'm not formally an engineer and I'm not good at math but I was trained as a programmer and mostly worked on the software engineering side of things. The thing I was best at was debugging, and that's basically the raw application of the scientific method and investigative skills. I love physics and value science above all, am basically a universal agnostic. I don't have beliefs. At all. About anything. I'm the rare kind of person who will always change their minds when shown wrong. I certainly don't care one bit about intuitively "knowing" things, that's not how any of this works.

And from a scientific perspective, by definition, this "placebo" thing is the least effective treatment/effect possible since every single approved treatment has to be better than nothing/placebo. Extending this to the "powerful" effect it is believed to be is giant straw-grasping. So I thought it was some legitimate thing, but very minor, very rare, at most .1% as powerful as it's clearly believed by most MDs, who seem to follow Wessely's absurd beliefs that "the placebo is one of the most powerful interventions we have".

Now I know 100% that it's hogwash, fraudulent superstition as made-up as astrology and alchemy. I have zero doubt about it. There is always an explanation and it's beyond clear that it's a mere traditional belief in medicine, one of the most illegitimate things in all the professions. I now think that using it the way it is is criminal, amounts to malfeasance, and will be perceived this way some time in the future.

 

[rvallee]

Also, I'm about 99% certain that AI will mark the end of this ideology. It will be brutal in saying that it's complete BS.

The 1% I'm leaving out is the possibility that doctors spend a few years ignoring it, trying to convince AIs that they're actually right, unable to process why such a smart thing could be right about almost everything, and somehow "wrong" about this one thing.

 

[Creekside]

I voted other because I'm not sure of the definition. I expect that some people convince themselves that they have a disease and the symptoms from it. Some might convince themselves that they get symptoms from something like 5-G signals ... and reject any experiments that would actually test that. Would those qualify as psychosomatic illness? I certainly don't think it's as common as the medical industry like to think. I think the term is mostly used as an easy way out of a difficult medical problem: can't prove that the diagnosis is wrong, and if the "think yourself better" treatments don't work, it's the patient's fault for not trying hard enough.

 

[Hoopoe]

I voted other because I'm not sure of the definition. I expect that some people convince themselves that they have a disease and the symptoms from it. Some might convince themselves that they get symptoms from something like 5-G signals ... and reject any experiments that would actually test that. Would those qualify as psychosomatic illness?

In my opinion, no.

If we construct this as imaginary illness: everyone seems to agree that psychosomatic illness does not mean imaginary illness.

If we construct it as misattribution: misattributing symptoms to something like wind turbines when they have another simultaneously occurring cause also can't be a psychosomatic illness because the psyche is not generating these symptoms. Being sometimes wrong is normal. So it's just a misattribution. If psychosomatic is used in this instance, for me, it would be an incorrect use of the term.

Those who believe that these are instances of psychosomatic illness seem to believe that the act of believing causes symptoms to appear. But I think that this interpretation is likely confusing "misattribution" with "symptoms being generated by the mind".

But I haven't really had any contact with such patients, so who knows.

 

[ukxmrv]

Your mention of asthma reminds me of something that happened in my school. There was child with asthma there and I remember the teachers discussing an attack they had and they were firmly of the belief it was a psych condition back then.

This same child died when I was in secondary school. It was an asthma attack

I think that was when I realised that they had been wrong and started questioning this attitude.

 

[Hutan]

Here are some further accounts of what a neurologist describes as instances of psychosomatic illness.

That's Suzanne O'Sullivan. Just because she has written a story, it doesn't make it true. The patronising nature of that story is what sticks out most to me. The consultant is examining a woman who says she is blind, and doesn't tell her that there are nine junior doctors, medical students and nurses also standing by watching, exchanging snide glances and stifling giggles.

Most of us here have experienced doctors misunderstanding and reporting things that were not said. How much less weight should we give to a story that doesn't have to stick to the facts and is part of a book designed to produce revenue, an international book tour and fame? We don't know, was the family trying to get a pay out from the supermarket, due to a bleach-based fluid being sprayed in the woman's eyes? Was there a misunderstanding about the nature of the vision impairment; perhaps there was just temporary blurring or an ocular migraine? If a woman really thought she was blind, why would she make a thank you card for Suzanne O'Sullivan with a drawing using appropriate colours? Had she been manipulated into posing as blind by her husband, and was wanting someone at the hospital to understand? Things don't add up all over the place - the woman is on the one hand working in a supermarket, but a housekeeper had been hired who did all the housework and looked after the children because the woman was struggling.

That's the problem with so many of these psychosomatic illness stories - they are anecdotal, half truths, stories passed down through history that grow in size and absurdity. The consultant's cheery self-satisfied note that all is well now, but the woman and her husband 'still struggle a little to accept the diagnosis in full' suggests that we don't actually know the real story here.

 

[Hutan]

I used to have one of these back in 1994, when I moved out to a house with no carpets in 2013 I cured my asthma.

Same! Hard flooring is definitely the way to go. Of course, childhood asthma gets better over time for a lot of people, including me, so there's that too.

 

[Hoopoe]

Your mention of asthma reminds me of something that happened in my school. There was child with asthma there and I remember the teachers discussing an attack they had and they were firmly of the belief it was a psych condition back then.

This same child died when I was in secondary school. It was an asthma attack

I had asthma attacks as child for a year or so. It started in winter. The attacks were unpredictable and I used an inhaler.

One day we did physical education in a park, on a warm day so it must have been late spring, early summer, or early autumn. Heavy exertion often triggered attacks. That day I was so fed up with it that I just stopped being afraid of an attack and began running and my airways did not constrict in any way. The asthma attacks became less frequent and then stopped alltogether. It sounds like the typical story that believers in psychosomatic illness would tell. To paraphrase one fervent believer: "I looked down the barrel of the asthma gun and disarmed it."

But maybe this interpretation reverses the causality. The asthma was on a trajectory of improvement. It would make sense that one day my mindset would also shift in response to the improvement. And being outdoors is a favorable environment for avoiding asthma attacks.

The inhaler contained cortisone. Around the time of the asthma, I also developed depressive symptoms. I wonder if it was because of the cortisone. I probably used the inhaler too liberally because it was like a miracle to go from feeling choked to breathing freely in seconds.

 

[Kitty]

I think the nearest I can get is believing that the experience of some symptoms might be influenced by psychological factors, but that's a very long way from a whole condition being psychosomatic in origin.

Anyway, in a world where we know that parasites can chemically influence their host's behaviour to extreme degrees, how do we demonstrate that symptoms don't have an organic cause?

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Would those qualify as psychosomatic illness?

No, just mis-attributed.

everyone seems to agree that psychosomatic illness does not mean imaginary illness.

That's what medical professionals say, but a lot of them don't really mean it, it's double-speak. There's also different degrees of belief so for example a patient could have 7/10 deteriorative pain, the doctor says they believe the symptoms are real but only believes the patient has non-deteriorative 3/10 pain.

 

[NelliePledge]

I don’t think it really registered with me I definitely had heard of psychosomatic but didn’t think about it in any depth.

To be perfectly honest people being malingerers was more on the radar. I didn’t believe that this applied to anything other than a small minority but I did have a couple of colleagues over the years that I suspected were exaggerating illness.

 

[Hoopoe]

Once I understood expectation and similar biases, and what placebo responses in clinical trials actually mean, claims of psychosomatic causation lost a lot of credibility.

It's no coincidence that alleged psychosomatic symptoms/illnesses in many situations resemble various cognitive biases and placebo responses.

For example it has been claimed that suggestibility is a feature of psychosomatic illness (symptoms get worse if patient is told they will get worse). The phenomenon observed here seems to be expectation bias.

The treatments for alleged psychosomatic illnesses are all designed to maximize cognitive biases and placebo responses.

 

[rvallee]

I voted other because I'm not sure of the definition. I expect that some people convince themselves that they have a disease and the symptoms from it. Some might convince themselves that they get symptoms from something like 5-G signals ... and reject any experiments that would actually test that. Would those qualify as psychosomatic illness? I certainly don't think it's as common as the medical industry like to think. I think the term is mostly used as an easy way out of a difficult medical problem: can't prove that the diagnosis is wrong, and if the "think yourself better" treatments don't work, it's the patient's fault for not trying hard enough.

Very different thing, it's just wrong attribution, usually as a result of negligence at figuring it out, or genuine ignorance. It's like how infectious diseases used to be blamed on spirits/demons or bad air. The people were ill, not because of demons or spirits, had nothing to do with that.

Which, in a very real sense, is exactly what psychosomatic ideologues do. They take someone who is ill because of a reason, and incorrectly attribute it to some cause that they prefer. It's the exact same thing as when people used to blame disease on superstitious nonsense. And it's not as if before science doctors didn't do that plenty. They very much did. Experience is nearly worthless without a scientific understanding, we are just in the unfortunate last few spots where science hasn't found the real explanation.

 

[rvallee]

I don’t think it really registered with me I definitely had heard of psychosomatic but didn’t think about it in any depth.

To be perfectly honest people being malingerers was more on the radar. I didn’t believe that this applied to anything other than a small minority but I did have a couple of colleagues over the years that I suspected were exaggerating illness.

And it really should never be forgotten just how much of this there is the literature surrounding us. They may say that they don't think we are malingering/feigning, but they sure said it a lot in the past, and in the present, and in writing. It just depends on who the audience is.

It's it's not just the famous "Illness malingering and deception", or whatever, conference that most of the BPS big shots attended, it's still repeated, especially so in the context of disability support and to insurance companies. They can say they never said it, but they did, they absolutely still do argue that about us when they feel comfortable saying so.

And then there's stuff like "The bastards just don't want to get better". There are layers of bigotry and disgusting claims, and they won't be forgotten forever.

 

[Binkie4]

I started to read the thread not being sure how I would vote.

As I read it, I realised I knew of a case of an illness that to me is entirely psychosomatic and so I ticked yes. Now I wonder why I didn't immediately jump to a 'yes': it is as if I hadn't allowed myself to do this. With my tongue in cheek, I wonder if, as a person with ME, I can't allow myself to enter the domain of the psychs.

I wish I could describe the situation because I would be interested in reading your views but it is current and sensitive so I won't. It does convince me that there are illnesses that are psychosomatic.

After rereading Trish's post #10, I would like to refer to it here.


Maybe you would consider the issue I am referring to a symptom of psychological distress not an illness ( I apologise for it being hard when I am not describing the circumstances), but I would describe ongoing, with no sign of ending after several years, symptoms that affect the functioning of the body and have been fully investigated, an illness, a psychosomatic illness.

 

[Sean]

Also, I'm about 99% certain that AI will mark the end of this ideology. It will be brutal in saying that it's complete BS.

I am not so confident. GIGO being the main reason. If the psychosomatic cult can figure out how to pervert AI to their ends, they will.

It's no coincidence that alleged psychosomatic symptoms/illnesses in many situations resemble various cognitive biases and placebo responses.

The treatments for alleged psychosomatic illnesses are all designed to maximize cognitive biases and placebo responses.

Exactly.

 

[Trish]

AI would have to get a whole lot cleverer than it is now if it's going to decide the BPS ideology is trash. I can't see how it will do that given the problems most humans have with seeing through it.

 

[RedFox]

So there is this one case that I have been reluctant to share because it is unpleasant and could cause stress. I will enclose it within the spoiler. I think in order to to have the type of conversion disorder people are perpetuating to exist; the trauma has to be significant such as in this case.

The problem with that is...there's an obvious mechanism. "True" psychosomatic diseases, like what Chalder and Wessely support, don't have actual causes, it's just

• Anxiety
• ???
• Profit!

We accept that health issues can have physical or mental/emotional causes. But the modern psychosomatic school offers nothing but hand-waving, magical thinking, and statistical fishing expeditions to explain whatever they say is psychosomatic. The real problem with the BPS model is not that it asserts that someone's mental health can affect their physical health or vice/versa, it's that it's all hand-waving nonsense.