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Recent developments on psychological factors in medically unexplained symptoms and somatoform disorders 2022 Mewes et al

Discussion in 'Other psychosomatic news and research' started by Andy, Nov 21, 2022.

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  1. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

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    Somatic symptoms which are not fully explained by a medical condition (medically unexplained symptoms) have a high relevance for the public health. They are very common both in the general population and in patients in health care, and may develop into chronic impairing conditions such as somatoform disorders. In recent years, the relevance of specific negative psychological factors for the diagnosis and the stability of somatoform disorders and for the impairment by medically unexplained symptoms gained more and more attention. This resulted—among others- in core changes in the diagnostic classification criteria of somatoform disorders. Against this background, the present “Perspective” will outline recent developments and findings in the area of medically unexplained somatic symptoms and somatoform disorders. Moreover, it will lay a special focus on evidence on specific negative psychological factors that may influence the course of unexplained somatic symptoms and disorders and the impairment caused by these symptoms.

    Open access, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1033203/full
     
  2. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

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    Let me guess. Lots of correlations.

    *sigh*
     
  3. duncan

    duncan Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    "Since persistent medically unexplained somatic symptoms and somatoform disorders bring about high costs for health care systems and are among the leading causes of disability (8), it is highly relevant to investigate psychological factors that characterize and influence these symptoms and disorders"

    How is this a logical conclusion? It's like saying "we have many cars with unexplained mechanical issues, therefore it is highly relevant to evaluate horse saddles."
     
  4. CRG

    CRG Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Not quite - rather they are saying that (from their perspective) the cars with unexplained mechanical issues have seats that are characterized and influenced by horse saddles. They don't feel any need to establish causal relationships between any issues that may or may not affect seats, and actual mechanical dysfunction despite the seats having no apparent physical connection to the moving parts of the vehicle.
     
    Mithriel, Sean, Wits_End and 4 others like this.
  5. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Absolutely insane that modern medicine not only believes in stuff as random and arbitrary as the modern equivalent of the humors, but has so thoroughly lost the ability to judge reality about this issue that they can see nothing wrong with the suggestion that something on the order of a quarter of the population might suffer from this. This is an extraordinary claim whose entire evidence is speculation about things that "may" be relevant of "can" happen and nothing else. Extraordinary claims with zero evidence. That's religion, or at least it's belief.

    That's the line of reasoning that goes from a quarter to a third of all medical appointments having no explanation to baseless claims such as this, calling this speculative ideological construct "very common". Even though the very best that can be said about any single claim in here is: you can't prove it's wrong, a well-known logical fallacy that really strikes home how disastrous things are, falsification being one of the most important principles in science. The only reason why medicine is credible is that it's supposed to be based on science. This is throwing away the only thing that makes medicine credible.

    Even more so that there can be regular publication of articles boasting about developments, which never actually show any development. All they do is describe what they did and thought recently, which is nearly identical no matter how far back it goes, the only differences is how it's explained. There is nothing there, there are decades of publications in the past on the same basis, it's an ideology that is both older than a century and perpetually new.

    Let's be clear about one thing, and I do not mean this to be negative about them, but this here is a social science. It is not based on hard science, it is people talking about people with other people based on no coherent process or logical structure. There are branches of philosophy that are almost hard science compared to this.

    Pseudoscience is now on equal footing with actual science in medicine and is now very common. This is a sad fact. Even worse is that it's on equal footing exactly where it matters the most: where healthcare meets patients. Often in a process that takes all but 2 minutes to come to an opinion that has no basis in reality, with the speculative pseudoscience actually overruling proper science.

    Even the field of economics has largely accepted that supply-side economics, giving money to rich people so that it will "trickle down" on the rest of us, is a scam. This is as if the field had made it the only acceptable economic theory. Beyond absurd.
     
  6. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    this again; they are explained if you have an ME diagnosis, or an MS diagnosis, or an IBS diagnosis.....etc etc that's what diagnostic criteria are for. The only thing that is as yet 'unexplained' is the exact cause of these illnesses/medical conditions.
     
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  7. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    https://www.britannica.com/story/the-strange-grisly-history-of-the-first-blood-transfusion
    If the psychs had been around at that time then it would have been the patients' fault of course, because their failure to recover would clearly have been down to lack of will to recover, given there was no other medical reason known at the time for their deaths. Especially as it worked for some, so must obviously work for everyone provided they try hard enough.
     
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