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The irony is, your friend is probably quite intelligent. He just isn't very good at reasoning. At separating the facts from what he wishes to be true. His feelings and world view get in the way. It might turn out that this person can actually reason well in some situations - when they're in a...

No, in earnest. @Snow Leopard seemed to be saying that if you gave a healthy person GET, and they complied, they would not show any improvement in fitness levels after a year. We're weren't talking about ME patients. This is very important, because in some papers, people have made the argument...

Well, that's not ideal either. Having payment associated with it will create its own problems. Reviewers might be motivated to be tougher or gentler if they think it will get them more future gigs. That sort of thing.

I agree there are still unresolved issues. The main problem is that its hard to get anyone to review at all, there's a major reviewer recruitment crisis. And I certainly don't think making reviews unblinded will help with that. Quite the opposite.

Agree with @Sean. Too far left and you find yourself talking about "knowledges", all of which are apparently equally legitimate. Yes, I've thought the same about the BPS lot, because they are so in bed with the insurance industry and the DWP. The ideology that gave birth to some of their...

I lean to the left myself (didn't want to say that in case it was too political). I think the issue of what world view drives certain attitudes to our illness is worthy of discussion, and I don't think we're required to restrict ourselves to facts that have been demonstrated by RCTs, as long as...

I don't understand this. Are you saying that people could have done genuine GET (with its incremental element), been fully compliant with the regime and the incremental aspect, and still might not have shown an improvement in fitness after a year of that?

Yes, I've noticed that too. And the doctors who have harmed us the most - the BPS acolytes - tend to be left-leaning. Actually, the harmful doctors/researchers/professionals seem to fall into two categories: 1) conservative and mysogynistic, dismissive of MECFS as a modern social ill (think...

Interesting. This touches on the notion of folk psychology, which I have recently been discussing with some colleagues. Folk psychology refers to explanations of people's behaviour that draw on universally understood vocabulary and concepts. So for example, saying someone did something "on...

The implication is that if you can link a symptom to female gender, then in many of these people's minds that proves it is psychological. Because women are believed to be more prone to somatisation. There are female coauthors on this article. I can't understand why they buy this patronising and...

I honestly can't believe what I'm reading here. Unbelievably, these authors have "explained" the variance in self-reported fatigue using measures that heavily overlap with self-reported fatigue. How ridiculous to present lower physical function and reduced activity as causes of fatigue. Can't...

I'm not sure what to make of this twitter account, @Slysaint. Seems to take a strong stance against psychotropic drugs, advocating that at least mildly distressed people can get better with talking therapy. It also advances the idea that MUSs are caused by psychotropic drugs. That's an...

Yes, exactly! Both this and the psychogenic fever example illustrate how the process works. The psychological "evidence" is "uncovered" during the process of confirming the psychogenic explanation. It doesn't matter if you can't find an obvious stressor. Keep prodding. You'll always find...

Continuing my tour of the weird and wonderful literature on "psychogenic" illnesses, I just saw this piece, one of the authors is Neil Harrison. As you've probably already predicted, the diagnosis of psychogenic amnesia is largely one of exclusion (the patient doesn't seem to have a...

Hello @fossil, and welcome to the forum! If you feel like it, you can introduce yourself here: https://www.s4me.info/forums/introduce-yourself.18/ Not obligatory though, only if you feel like it.

That's interesting to hear you found the PASAT to be good at distinguishing PwMEs from controls. We've heard similar findings before, but I don't think your own study was mentioned at the time. The authors of this study don't give any rationale for their test choice - neither theoretical nor...

The people in the paper do seem to have something wrong with them. The high temperatures are pretty high and are periodic.

I think there are two problems. The first, and largest, is co-opting the literature to promote a strongly personally held view (the author is a specialist in "psychosomatic medicine"). The effect has been a cobbling together of studies, some that have clear alternative explanations (e.g., high...

I did try ranitidine. But that had no noticeable effect. In my case, there was a specific rationale behind the cimetidine. Its supposed to modulate the action of T-regulator cells, and have a general anti-inflammatory effect.

Not brand new, but I just came across it and had to share!! https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23328940.2015.1056907 There was an idea banging about in the 1930s that fever can be "psychogenic" - in women of course - and it seems there are still advocates of this idea today. The...