All-or-Nothing Behavior and Catastrophic Thinking Predict Fatigue in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Prospective Cohort Study 2023 Moulton Chalder et al

Also from the referenced paper of Artom et al (2016) that found no correlation with fatigue in general, and no causation:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/apt.13870

My bolding. Again the impression seems to be (and there is more detail on the other scales but I didn't want to paste too much) very careful consideration of using the measures both specifically to the conditions being studied and for them to be analysed appropriately for the Artem et al (2016) paper.

This [Moulton et al, 2023] paper uses just the CBSQ (it seems to be the same scale from the long form writing out of its title, even though it uses the acronym CBRQ) and for the same CBSQ measure notes:

 

It's heads we win, tails you lose. Any & all personality types or traits they can shoehorn us into are signs of our wrongness, even if these are two diametrically opposed types/traits simultaneously.

More generally, I always wonder if the BPS lot go through life without ever experiencing illness, or it's, if they do, the framework they impose on everyone else doesn't apply, because they're special. I suspect they make a huge fuss about sniffles or paper cuts, but it would be interesting to know.

 

I feel sorry for them because on some level they probably treat themselves they way they treat us, or extrapolate from themselves to us.

That would suggest huge problems with accepting disability, chronic illness, and physical defects. Perhaps an obsession with constantly "overcoming themselves" instead of accepting themselves. Problems with trusting their own thoughts and judgments. Or perhaps a lot of hypochondria, false illness beliefs, and laziness, or faking medical illness for attention that they didn't receive enough of.

 

Maybe it boils down to plain old 'othering' which is something they should be very aware of, being so highly educated in the field of human behaviour.

The people they study seem to be the 'out group' that is homogenised as per the ingroup/outgroup effect (Billig & Tajfel, 1973).
"In short, this effect speaks to how we differentially treat those whom we see as "in our group" versus those whom we see as some kind of "other," meaning someone who is defined as in "some group other than my own group." "
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201904/the-psychology-othering

We see members of our own group as fascinating human beings and different in all sorts of ways but other groups as being all much the same as each other. It is common to everyone and not easy to shake.

It's hard not believe you are being shoe-horned into an homogeneous 'other' category when answering questionnaires or talking to a doctor or therapist etc.

 

Of course! The construct is ridiculous when you're talking about people with serious illnesses. Their realistic appraisals will be read as "catastrophizing" if you don't think they're really sick.

 

Except I guess this doesn't matter anymore, since IBD is definitely perceived as a serious disease. But it looks like this is where the separation between disease and illness is going, the junk Sharpe was bleating about in his op-ed: disease is real, it can be seen and understood by doctors and is serious, life-threatening, whereas illness is just what patients are afraid of.

If they have a disease, then it's their fear of what the disease will do to them that causes illness. And if they don't have a disease, well then it's fear of what it could do to them if they had one and that's scaaaary. Unless there's some tissue clearly being injured somewhere, but that's always temporary, the body always repairs perfectly. Somehow. Even though that's obviously wrong. But it feels so much better to believe in it. Well, for them, not for us. Definitely not for us.

Basically, illness has become fully synonymous with fear. It's just fear, nothing else. You can't feel disease, shouldn't be able to know if you have a different gene or some process or another. That's only for doctors to know about, knowledge they would withhold from us if they weren't obligated by law. Which they routinely do when they don't have such obligations. So if you feel ill, it's only because you know or think you have some disease, so it's good to withhold this knowledge from us, as it allows us not to worry our pretty little non-expert heads about it.

It's really not any different from Catholic mass held in latin. Can't criticize the book if you don't even know what's in it. And the change in the future will need to be as radical, because the priests won't let go of their power, it will only be taken away from them. Likely by much smarter machines. That'll be a sight to behold. The bruise on their egos...

 

https://virology.ws/2023/09/04/trial-by-error-just-the-latest-gibberish-from-professor-chalder/

 

You're a good writer, @dave30th .

 

thanks! I appreciate that.

 

"Is there no mercy in this world for those of us forced by professional obligations to read this unceasing stream of sewage?"

You absolutely have my sympathy but just think what it is like then for those of us who don't even have professional obligations, but are forced by a potentially illusionary sense that if this sort of garbage is highlighted then it might eventually lead to an improvement in the quality of research and how patients are treated in the future.

 

How easy is the game of mix and match.

Take CBT and match the list of cognitive distortions to any and every known category to man. Obtain an odds ratio of under 1.1 and call it an association when it is most likely artifact and certainly not clinically significant.

Take pride in seeing your name in publication after publication, justifying your claims. How sad and pernicious.

How about research on catastrophizing in astronauts facing sudden incipient catastrophy?