BBC: Long Covid course [LP] is ‘exploiting people’, says ex-GB rower, 2024, article and radio program

Some posts have been moved from Anyone tried Lightning Process for Long Covid?

Here is the link to the promo for it live on Tuesday 21 May 8:00pm UK time and full recording available after then.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001zg5q
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Moderator note: For anyone reading this thread who is new to the Lightning Process, we have numerous threads about it which you can find by clicking the Lightning Process tag at the top of this thread.
The general discussion thread about LP is here: Lightning Process - discussion thread

 

A print "teaser" article has just appeared on the BBC website
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-690...&at_link_type=web_link&at_campaign_type=owned

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-69040592

A little late to the party at least for this forum members

 

'The coach on the course stressed the importance of avoiding negative thoughts and words like "pain" and "fatigue", claiming using them can continue symptoms.

"I'm afraid now we've strayed very, very far from neuroscience," Dr Nord says, calling this an "abuse" of scientific terms.

When we put these specific claims to Dr Parker, he said our questions seemed to be "informed solely by the rumours and misinformation" circulated by what he called "anti-recovery activists".'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-69040592



Makes a change to see a prominent article critical of Lightning Process. But it's not just an abuse of scientific terms, LP is an abuse of sick people. Lightning is a damaging obedience training, nothing more than that.

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@Hutan I can understand you being disappointed because we know it could have gone so much further and been more damning. But I think it was fine for a general audience in limited time. I presume the BBC Legal team would have had some influence on the content and ensured a degree of “balance” and limiting potential litigation from Phil Parker.

It is interesting that this was Rachel Schraer’s last report for BBC and she is taking up a position with https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/ where I expect she will have fewer restrictions. I would like to think this is a decent first crack from the MSM into LP and hopefully it will encourage other media (in NZ!) to do follow up investigations - particularly into the harms it has caused.

 

2020 Interview about Lightning Process, with ME patient and advocate Joan McParland (Founder and former Chair of Hope 4 ME & Fibro Northern Ireland). Joan spells out what exactly happens during Lightning Process trainings and exactly how Lightning damages ME patients physically and psychologically.


"I have been conned - When sick patients are sold psychological snake oil"

https://medicalerrorinterviews.podb...ck-patients-are-sold-psychological-snake-oil/

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Quote from the link above with my emphasis :

That word "activists" does more heavy lifting than any other word I know.

 

I was very impressed by the article. It was stronger than what I'd expect from the BBC. It's quietly damning, which is always good for a journalistic piece.

My favourite moments are:

"I'm afraid now we've strayed very, very far from neuroscience," Dr Nord says, calling this an "abuse" of scientific terms.

When we put these specific claims to Dr Parker, he said our questions seemed to be "informed solely by the rumours and misinformation" circulated by what he called "anti-recovery activists".

I love it when journalists get ppl on the defensive and they say ridiculous things - nothing like condemning ppl using their own words.

In secret recordings by the BBC, coaches can be heard telling patients that almost anyone can recover from long Covid by changing their thoughts, language and actions.

Over three days on Zoom, the course taught the ritual that forms the basis of the programme. Every time you experience a symptom or negative thought, you say the word "stop", make a choice to avoid these symptoms and then do a positive visualisation of a time you felt well.

You do this while walking around a piece of paper printed with symbols - a ritual the BBC was told to do as many as 50 times a day.

Prof Danny Altmann, a leading long Covid researcher, says such behavioural approaches disregard the "mass" of underlying damage in patients that can be measured in tests.

This makes them sound like a lifestyle cult

 

It’s crazy to me that their reporting is more “balanced” on the scam of a treatment the lightning process is, than it was when there were accusations of harassment from a few members of a vulnerable patient group.

 

To be fair, them including the quote about ‘anti recovery activists’ is probably more damning than anything they could have written. Making ppl look ridiculous using their own words is a v powerful journalistic tool.

 

It honestly reminded me a tiny bit of the Prince Andrew interview - you’re delighted if you get a quote like that out of someone as a journalist. ‘Anti-recovery activist’ is so self-evidently ridiculous. The rest of the piece is quietly damning, and a quote like that coming from the horse’s mouth, makes all those other criticisms seem all the more persuasive.

 

I’ve seen similar language used in online ME forums that have a lot of people new to the illness and very mild. I think it’s a really hard pill to swallow that it’s so rare to recover, and unfortunately even that kind of language that seems absurd to us might strike a cord with some unfortunately.

 

Yeah honestly from the BBC, which is generally very risk-averse and non-confrontational, I thought the article was as good as it could've been. I’d say the piece is what a damning BBC article looks like.

 

One other small detail I really like about the piece and that quote. When Parker talks about "anti-recovery activists," he's probably referring to patients, and drawing on the long-standing BPS trope of suggesting the ME debate consists of scientists (themselves) and patient-activists who at some level just don't want to get better. However, in the BBC article, the journalist puts the anti-recovery activist quote right after a quote from a Cambridge neuroscientist who says "I'm afraid now we've strayed very, very far from neuroscience." Also more generally, though the the piece opens with a quote from Oonagh, who's a prominent Long Covid advocate, it actually focuses much more on a) Danny Altmann and the Cambridge neuroscientist and b) the BBC's own investigation, including them actually experiencing the lightning process. Which all makes the anti-recovery activist quote look even more like the ramblings of a quack who's deeply out of touch with science and reality.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1792885699722576211