BPS attempts at psychologizing Long Covid

But will it be a big enough disaster ?

 

Recent events have suggested that the human reaction to disasters, of varying kinds, is not exactly as good as one would hope. Basically, disaster has a rather high approval rating. So even if it continues to be disastrous... Thing is, one person's disaster is another person's knighthood/ladyhood and numerous professional awards and recognition.

 

There hasn't been much coverage on Long Covid in Norway. But one of the biggest papers, VG, has an article today. It's not yet available online, but here is a summary:

An emergency care doctor says that they've previously compared corona with flu, but that it might be more correct to compare it with mononucleosis, as patients often are sick for much longer.

The doctor caught the virus himself and was surprised of how long it took for him to return to normal. 9 months in he is still feeling ill and hopes to be able to return to work 50% after Christmas.

Clinic manager for physical medicine and rehabilitation at a hospital is also leading an expert group from the Norwegian Directorate of Health who will be advising health care workers caring for corona patients in the rehabilitation phase.

She says that they're seeing many with a mild corona infection having trouble with fatigue and concentration problems after the infection and that it takes time for them to get back to normal.

She says symptoms can be higher pulse, being tired, pain and mental symptoms.
- The body can be in a state of alert over time. These ailments are real, but in most cases they will pass.

She further says she's been worried that many deteriorate due to there being so much bad information about how dangerous corona is, both serious and unserious information.
- It can be information that creates fear and makes you anxious and afraid. This also does something to the body. It becomes an additional stress reaction, the level of alertness increases and the health follows.

She underlines that anxiety can increase physical symptoms, and that more information might prevent patients becoming more ill.

So it seems Norway is about to take a psychosomatic approach to Long Covid..

Poor patients.

 

I missed my bin collection last night, I am definitely foggy headed and not with it, possibly a bit stressed and emotionally labile due to a constantly recurring cycle of inflammation subsequent to my covid infection this time last year, which is still giving me weekly migraines and exacerbating PEM considerably but it strikes me that if a virus makes you ill and stress while suffering from a virus makes you iller that you have to relax and not stress. So I am trying not to worry about my bins.

I completely accept stress does matter in recovery from viral illness. Stress makes things worse, reducing stress helps. It does not help to deny the counterproductive affect of stress on viral illness.

The problem is a history of clinicians losing their way in psycho-sophistry, imagining models of conditioning and reinforcement which are not accurate, misapplying a purely psychological paradigm, ignoring the inflammatory basis of the immune response to viral infections and doubling down on stressors as a treatment for MECFS in a misguided attempt to break patients out of an illness which is not primarily psychological, which consequently doesnt work and makes people iller, because stress makes viral illness worse, because these people have viral illness not a psychological condition. Is that clear enough ?

The problem is not patients behaving badly, the problem is, like David Tuller was saying in a recent blog, clinicians adopting the wrong paradigm which doesnt work and is harmful.

The question is, are these Norwegians really going to be mislead by people like Vogt and do this all over again or can we communicate with them and intercede? It is possible there are still people out there trying to avoid paying for treatments, which encourages this kind of mistake. Is that a factor this time?

I think we should monitor and if necessary intervene and by we I especially mean recognised groups like ME Association, Action for ME and ME Action and any other ME organisations out there.

IMHO we do have to be vigilant and responsive where necessary, like the T cells of the human psyche, remembering past pathology and seeking out and deactivating pathogenic ideas where they recur.

We just need to relax while we are doing it and not get stressed or anything.

 

on the news this evening was a piece about a primary school in merseyside employing a wellness teacher going on about covid stress affecting primary school kids and causing somatic symptoms where will all this tripe lead us ? not to a better future that's for sure . denying that children can get physically ill for all kinds of reasons and replacing it with more of this ideology is breath taking .

 

Can anyone here please book on this course and see what is being said. I have full clinics on Tuesday. I'll ask colleagues if anyone is free to attend too.

Thanks
Joan Crawford
Counselling Psychologist

 

not a recommendation
piece in Psychology today
When the Body Speaks
Let's not neglect the physical symptoms of emotional distress during COVID-19.

(note Michael Sharpe is current president of ACLP)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/nobodys-normal/202012/when-the-body-speaks

 

I can't wait to see this 'research' slowly circling the drain.

 

How could Grinker say anyhing else? He received his degree in anthropology in 1989 (EDIT from Harvard). Presumably he must have been instructed by Kleinman. There are traditions to be maintained.

 

Long COVID: 'I thought being young and fit would protect me - I was wrong'

https://news.sky.com/story/long-cov...p-at-more-than-60-clinics-in-england-12165947

 

Not so much 'BPS' trying to psychologize LongCovid, as much as, well, nonsense-psychology:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nobodys-normal/202012/when-the-body-speaks

Mhmm.

Yes, the old myth that patients dislike CBT or GET because it is "dismissive" and "suggests that the illness isn't real". Nothing at all due to the low quality of evidence. Of course not.

Also funny how certain individuals always use the term "CFS/ME" in that order...

 

The first sentence says the whole thing. That they think the issue is with the words, not their meaning. Again I can't tell the difference whether they think we're completely stupid or if they really are that delusional. Or maybe they think we can't read. I don't know really because they are quite open in their papers and conferences that they mean the exact same thing and that we actually can, as a matter of fact, read words and comprehend them.

Feels like old priests trying to keep alive a tradition of murder sacrifices by attempting to change the method of execution. As if that's the issue.

 

This has appeared on another thread. I noted there that the author appears to have received a PhD from Harvard in 1989 in anthropology. Kleinman would have been head of the department which I believe fell within the larger orbit of Eisenberg. It is notable that he does not, in the article, explain his expertise.

Don't ask for quotes from Kleinman on the subject. I could provide them.

 

The link is Roy Richard Grinker Sr, who wrote about psychosomatics in the 40s-60s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_R._Grinker_Sr. (note, link isn't playing nice with . at the end)

Also, from a prior discussion on this forum (which discusses Grinker):
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...social-model/A31DAA3BED6569F6080A1DF2C1D15A64

 

There are actually two wiki pages for this man :

Code:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_R._Grinker_Sr.

Code:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Richard_Grinker

Edit : Ignore that... They are father and son, or grandfather and grandson.