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Voices of Recovery website (Lightning Process promotion)

Discussion in 'Psychosomatic theories and treatments discussions' started by Andy, Jul 14, 2021.

  1. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

    Messages:
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    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    Looks to be a UK version of Recovery Norge - all stories mention the Lightning Process.

    "Who We Are

    Here at Voices of Recovery, we know that change IS possible.

    We were founded in 2020 to represent the voices of those that have fully recovered from chronic illness, particularly Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) and fibromyalgia.

    We know these diagnoses are not a life sentence! We have over 50 members who have all fully recovered to prove otherwise."

    URL (copy and paste if you really need to use it)
    Code:
    https://www.voicesofrecoverygroup.org/
    An archived, at time of posting this, version
    https://web.archive.org/web/20210714075836/https://www.voicesofrecoverygroup.org/
     
  2. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

    Messages:
    21,810
    Location:
    Hampshire, UK
    Trial By Error: Some Lightning Process Updates

    "Who is ‘Voices of Recovery’?

    I’ve checked out the website of a group called Voices of Recovery, which carries the headline “Live a Life You Love.” This group has become an official stakeholder in the ongoing process of the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to create new clinical guidelines for ME/CFS. In November, NICE released a draft version that explicitly recommended against the LP, and invited comments from stakeholders. The agency is scheduled to release a final version next month."

    https://www.virology.ws/2021/07/13/trial-by-error-some-lightning-process-updates/
     
  3. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    9,574
    Location:
    UK
  4. petrichor

    petrichor Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    320
  5. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,637
    My study of logic was a life time ago, but if my memory services me correctly this would be a good example of the fallacy of ‘going from the specific to the general’.

    - X had ME and tried the Lightening Process
    - X recovered
    - there every one with ME will recover if they do the Lightening Process

    if you accept this reasoning then you can also say

    - Y had ME and tried LP
    - Y got worse
    - therefore everyone with ME will be made worse if they do the Lightening Process

    and

    - Z had ME and didn’t try LP
    - Z recovered
    - therefor everyone with ME that doesn’t try LP will recover

    and

    - W had ME and didn’t try LP
    - W got worse
    - therefore everyone with ME that doesn’t try the LP will get worse

    so if you want to recover you should both do and not do the lightening process, and if you want to avoid getting worse, you should both not do and not not do the LP.

    [edited to add W for completeness sake]
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
  6. cassava7

    cassava7 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    985
    Very suspicious. The Facebook group was created on November 19th, just 9 days after NICE released the draft guidelines for ME/CFS.

    The domain name (voicesofrecoverygroup.org) was registered on December 8th.

    @dave30th According to the UK government's Companies House, Artemis Coaching was registered as a private limited company on November 19th by Anjali Chatterjee, with an address at a studio in London. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13032021/officers

    Chatterjee is also registered as the director of "TURQUOISE TREE: HOLISTIC HEALTH LTD. (08701429)". This seems to have been a dormant company (capital of 1 GBP), registered by Peter Valaitis from Bristol in September 2013 until Chatterjee took over directorship just a couple of months later and dissolved it in 2016.

    ETA: Valaitis appears to be part of Duport Associates Ltd, which is a business registration company -- Chatterjee must have paid them to register Turquoise Tree --.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
  7. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,637
    I am not sure ‘suspicious’ is a fair choice of word, though I do agree that the two events are likely to be linked.

    If we had felt that the draft was unreasonably supporting GET and that we needed to gather information on the harms of GET we might reasonably start a website and Facebook Group at that time gathering evidence of harm.

    It is not unreasonable for LP advocates to gather stories of recovery, but it is unreasonable for them to ignore stories of harm, and it is unreasonable to insist that they have no reason to address to apparent contradiction that for every recovery story there are many stories of no change or of harm. It is also anti science of them to assert that people who don’t recover didn’t try hard enough, when the only measure of trying hard enough is recovering/not recovering.
     
  8. Wyva

    Wyva Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    1,368
    Location:
    Budapest, Hungary
    This is probably her (London, Manchester, fibromyalgia, rehabilitating long term health conditions, mindfulness, bowen etc): https://www.breathworks-mindfulness.org.uk/anjali-chatterjee

    Edit: Peter Valaitis was the director of a million companies, all for a very short time (often only for a day): https://find-and-update.company-inf...cers/qVEwG2rzscbhP6o_l2wCSDYdQA8/appointments

    Edit2: Oh, now I see you explained this above @cassava7
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
  9. cassava7

    cassava7 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    985
    Here is Anjali Chatterjee giving an hour-long presentation on "the Business of Buddhist Action" at the Manchester Buddhist Centre in June 2016.

    "Anjali talks about a potential team-based right livelihood business inspired by the Dharma. Drawing on the radical example and ideas of Dr Ambedkhar, the business will aim to work in collaboration with the India Dhamma Trust"

    Although not listed in her qualifications on the Breathworks website @Wyva has linked to, I assume she has undergone training to become a Lightning Process practitioner.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38O-EYnTIFg




    ETA: a 8-session, GBP 220 mindfulness course on "Living Well with Pain and Illness" at the Manchester Buddhist Centre that she has instructed, aimed at:

    who is the course for?

    People we have helped so far include those with chronic back pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, post-operative pain, cancer, multiple sclerosis, CFS/ME, neuropathies, Parkinson’s disease, and many other types of pain and illness. Each week on this eight-week course you will learn new strategies and approaches within a warm and friendly group setting.
    3-page overview leaflet of the course

    ETA2: this 2014 newsletter features a 2-page autobiography of Anjali Chatterjee. She is a leg amputee who lives with fibromyalgia but she says she managed to come off of pain medication with meditation and the "Bowen technique".

    Excerpts (bolding mine):
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
  10. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,637
    The linked page says “Cities located: Manchester, London, Birmingham”. One reads of yogis mastering bi location, but tri location. (Sorry being flippant)
     
  11. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,637
    It would be interesting to know if she is still actively involved within the FWBO, and combining that with being a Lightening Process practitioner. It seems to me that the Lightening Process is not not compatible with traditional understandings of mindfulness or right livelihood. It strikes me that central to LP is a denial of your subjective reality, which I would regard as incompatible with Buddhist insight practices, such as mindfulness, where the aim is to transcend mundane reality not deny its existence.

    Though having said that in the past some members of the FWBO had an interest in NLP ([neurolinguistic programming]) and there is perhaps some overlap with the use of mantra repetition and associated practices, where aspects of a deity are invoked or envisaged in order to help realise their qualities in yourself. I have had no contact with the movement for some twenty years.

    (An aside - Much of her talk above deals with the issue of converting Untouchables in India. This is interesting as it is based on the rational that the scourge of ‘untouchability’ is inherent in Hinduism, and that a solution is to convert Untouchables to Buddhism to take them out of the framework that makes them third class citizens. It could be argued that Buddhism is very relevant to this, given it is based on the idea that achievement is via your own efforts, though there are Christian groups justifying their missionary work with the Untouchables on the same ground. Further there are Hindus who would argue that untouchability is a cultural phenomenon and is not inherent in Hinduism itself.)

    [corrected typos]
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
    dratalanta, Invisible Woman and mango like this.
  12. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,637
    Reading what @cassava7 has added to the above post, it seems (perhaps on the basis of insufficient information) that Chatterjee in her work through the Manchester Buddhist Centre was involved with ideas of personal growth and living with the underlying conditions, which is very different to the LP concept of curing the underlying condition.
     
    Invisible Woman and Trish like this.
  13. JemPD

    JemPD Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Do you mean Neuro Linguistic Programming? or is this something new using the same initials
     
  14. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    3,637
    Sorry yes I had not discovered some new phenomenon, I will correct my post.
     
    Invisible Woman and JemPD like this.
  15. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    5,234
    Attempting to join the Voices of Recovery facebook group brings up a questionnaire that asks

    What is your experience of the Lightning Process? Did you use it yourself, did you see someone recover using it, are you a trainer etc.? What issues did you/others resolve?

    Are you interested in spreading the word that recovery is possible?

    Would you like to get activitly involved in helping manage this group and promote the Lightning Process as a recovery tool?
     
    Hutan, Louie41, mango and 9 others like this.
  16. Wyva

    Wyva Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Location:
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    This is indeed very much like a cult.
     
    Hutan, Mij, Louie41 and 8 others like this.
  17. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    5,234
    This group seems to exist to promote the lightning process, not primarily to give a voice to those who have recovered from ME/CFS and fibromyalgia.

    I hope NICE will stick to good science and ignore these groups.
     
    Hutan, Louie41, Snowdrop and 10 others like this.
  18. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
    8,385
    The inbuilt bias is pretty strong isn't it. Voices of Recovery, not Voices of LP Participants. And the joining criteria is pretty selective ...
    upload_2021-7-15_14-48-40.png
    But what else would you expect ...
     
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  19. TiredSam

    TiredSam Committee Member

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    10,482
    Location:
    Germany
    It wouldn't surprise me if joining Voices of Recovery and writing something positive became a condition of doing an LP course, or part of the process to show your commitment and not incur the wrath and public humiliation of the trainer. So seen from that perspective (and I think it's a fair speculation, it's not as if LP coaches ever say "if you wouldn't mind, no pressure ...") these testimonies aren't worth a lot.
     
    Louie41, alktipping, JemPD and 4 others like this.
  20. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    8,385
    Even if the reports are genuine, they are highly filtered and thereby highly biased, because only successes ever get reported on Voices of Recovery.

    To me the key issue is not about whether LP ever succeeds (statistically there will be some successes, given the ramshackle diagnoses that abound), but whether LP ever harms. With anything claiming to be a medical treatment, assessment of the significance of any harms has to take priority. There are equivalent reports of LP harming people, that funnily enough, PP fails to draw attention to. It's no good touting a few assorted miracles, if a trail of maimed and damaged individuals get left behind in its wake. I wonder if PP's organisation has ever stated its position on medical ethics?

    LP DOES NOT WORK FOR ME

    https://www.sayer.abel.co.uk/MESNORFOLK/LP.html
     

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