Psychological flexibility in somatic symptom and related disorders: A case control study 2024 Selker et al

Highlights

• Psychological flexibility in people with somatic symptom disorder (SDD) is low.
  
  
• Three out of four patients with SSD have low or very low psychological flexibility.
  
  
• Lower psychological flexibility is associated with lower mental health.
  
  
• Assess psychological flexibility in SSD in screening, monitoring, and therapy.

Abstract

A key diagnostic criterion of Somatic Symptom and related Disorders (SSD) comprises significant distress and excessive time-and-energy consuming thoughts, feelings, and behavior pertaining to somatic symptoms. This diagnostic criterion is lacking in central sensitivity syndromes (CSS), such as fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome. This strong emphasis on disturbed psychological processing of somatic symptoms, suggests that psychological flexibility is low in SDD.

Psychological flexibility is defined as the ability to approach difficult or challenging internal states (thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations) in a non-judgmental, mindful way, and being committed to pursue one's values. To clarify the potential significance of psychological flexibility in SSD, we examined its levels in 154 people referred to specialized treatment for SDD, as compared to reference groups from the general population encompassing 597 people with CSS and 1422 people without SSD or CSS (controls). Mean levels of psychological flexibility (adjusted for demographic covariates) were lowest for SSD and highest for controls (F = 154.5, p < 0.001, pη2 = 0.13). Percentages of people with low psychological flexibility (<0.8 SD below the mean of controls) were: SSD 74%, CSS 42%, controls 21%. In SSD, higher psychological flexibility was associated with better mental health (β = 0.56, p < 0.001), but interaction analysis rejected that psychological flexibility preserved health when having more severe somatic symptoms (β ≤ 0.08, p ≥ 0.10).

The results indicate that lower psychological flexibility is a prevalent problem in SSD that is associated with lower mental health. This suggests that it is worthwhile to take account of psychological flexibility in SSD in screening, monitoring, and therapy.

Open access, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002239562400178X

 

Worthless drivel. All these people show is that they understand nothing about illness, and that they lack the empathy and imagination to see how this is simply a consequence of being ill. But since they don't believe in the illness, they pursue the same worthless nonsense decade after decade, producing nothing useful at all. So who's really psychological inflexible here?

They may as well note that quadriplegia is associated with low physical flexibility and recommend flexibility training to treat quadriplegia. Just utter trash, a child could do better.

 

What do we do with these campaigns?

They are pathologizing taking a non neutral perspective on bodily sensations.

I take a non neutral stance on this paper, fully mindful of the appropriate intensity of my emotion.

Particularly hilarious is the use of the word “control” in the title. In accordance with my values, top of which is my health, I’m not going to waste my energy reading further. But I expect they did not include controls like MS or other chronic illnesses in this “case control study.”

Giving myself a compassionate hug for bravely reading this violence.

Maybe a case control study of these types of research papers is due.

 

I shudder to think of the disastrous effect this endless stream of noxious “science” ,and its promotion in health governing bodies & media, will have in community level care. Overworked & under-resourced GPs will feel validated in dismissing symptoms that justify immediate further investigation. If it becomes a commonly followed “best practice”, lives will be at risk. Outside of the MECFS community, is there ever any push back from Immunology, Rheumatology, Gastroenterology organisations when the BPS sect makes assertions about patient groups in their fields?

 

Best I can tell almost none question any of this and think it's great and there should be more of it. Remember how many quotes and surveys and so on we've seen over the decades over how everything about us should be even more psycho, in fact all the bio should be stopped? It would be even worse if it weren't for constant patient efforts pushing it back a bit. MDs are all either too busy working too much, or are closer to the end of their career and long ago checked out.

And there is simply no universal, or even limited, quality control process to identify misdiagnoses that it all flies under the radar, gagged and covered up by abusing medical secrecy laws meant to protect patients, but instead bind them into the failures of a dysfunctional system.

It's all just a scarcity problem. Not enough MDs. Not even half as much as what's needed. Once the scarcity is solved with AI, all this silliness will go away. Not immediately, but soon enough. For sure none of the awful research will pass thorough evaluation anyway. Even worse once outcomes will be calculated accurately. There are very few worse lose-lose-lose systems out there, all cons and zero pros.

 

I think they can. The ‘new/breakthru’ of SSD is that unlike its predecessors they don’t need to be free of such other conditions or prove such symptoms aren’t indeed caused by them …. Just be ‘anxious enough’ even if you did have a really bad cancer and other illness etc