Lightning Process - discussion thread

What a find most odd here is Dr Flottorp's comment that LP has more than a placebo effect.
As Knoop, White et al pointed out in 2008 (?2007) treatments like CBT and LP are actually designed to work as placebos. They are treatments that are supposed to work by the mode of presentation of the treatment altering the person's beliefs and feelings about their symptoms - as a placebo.

Trying to maximise a placebo effect in this sense is a reasonable aim. My objection to use of placebos is the pretence that you are doing anything more than this and doing it in a dishonest way.

But Dr Flottorp thinks there is more to LP than this. It is as if she is saying that it is not just black magic but real evidence based black magic. Essentially she seems to be admitting that she has been conned just like the patients.
It is mind boggling that this sort of thinking should exist in a public health research institute.

 

I’ve done it myself, it didn’t work, I managed to speak to him on YouTube of all places to ask why and he just said try again with another practictioner, he didn’t give a shit why it didn’t work he would probably blame me i suppose but there’s not way I was handing over naother £700 but that’s what he would have been hoping for

 

I wonder how many people they have knowledge of for whom it did not work, and maybe were worse off for it? And they never mention ... not good for marketing. Makes you ponder the legality of publishing only one side of the story endorsements, without ever publishing the full picture.

 

They all seem to be the same

Lightning process, mickel, reverse therapy etc

When it doesn’t work they just shut down on you and totally stonewall you

It’s like they don’t want to admit it or accept it which seems bizzare, a lot of them are very well off, for example some of them are actual doctors so I assume they don’t need the money so why can they not just be honest with People?

Even if they was to say it works for 50% people and doesn’t for others and we don’t know why, but they seem incapable of that, it seems almost vital for them to do th eopposite

 

Yes it does. Putting up stories of people praising the product while ignoring people who have reported being harmed is I think actually illegal. Problem is, the only way to test this is for someone to file suit. The UK legal system is notoriously suit averse. I don't know how it would work to sue from another country where the LP is offered for sale.

 

I wish someone would do a site with reviews both positive and negative for these therapies just so people can see what they’re genuinely like

 

Perhaps there should be a Theradvisor site like Tripadvisor

 

Merged thread

"What on Earth is going on?" Homemade documentary on the Lightning Process

I've never come across this before. It seems to be a homemade documentary by a lady whose daughter improved / was 'cured' by the LP. She goes to Norway to film a severe ME patient undertaking the LP from the practitioner who treated her daughter, who has a remarkable turnaround.

It discusses the LP in some detail - though of course it's still quite vague. It even shows the practitioner doing the process, which I've not seen before. Includes an interview with Phil Parker.

I found the imagery and tone of the documentary quite dark and eerie. I think it's worth a watch for a better understanding of the LP.

Of course, I remain completely unconvinced.

 

It's often hard to understand due to the editing and vagueness in what is being said.

I understood that according to the LP paradigm, ME/CFS is a dysfunction of the fight and flight response and the sympathetic nervous system and that people can reprogram their nervous system by telling it that it's doing the wrong thing when it reacts negatively to something.

By fight and flight response they seem to mean a tension or restlessness in the body.

By reacting negatively they seem to mean having symptoms or noticing that something is wrong in the body.

 

this endorsement is a bit worrying (although it is from 2015)

© Neurologica Practice Ltd.
T +44 (0)203 005 3259


http://www.neurologicapractice.com/testimonials/

eta: this is the professor who wrote the testimonial
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/edwards.phil

there is an email address

 

Definitely worth finding out.

If I recall correctly there's a certain emminent psychiatrist who wrote a report on ME on stationary with the WHO logo. I'm a bit vague on the precise details but I believe the institution he worked for was authorized to use the paper but he wasn't. It leant false authority to the document as it made it look like it was written at the WHO's request or endorsed by them, neither being the case.

 

Just for fun I am wondering if King's College would feel it inappropriate for these other quacks to claim it as an institution of origin for the study.

Some things are not worth the bother though.

 

moved post

Well the question is whether the Norwegians will still go forward with theirs

 

Well, this page is still up on the Bristol University site:

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/academic-child-health/research/research/cfsme/lightning-process/


"Lightning Process


This project seeks to define and describe the Lightning Process® (a commercially-available complementary intervention) compared to specialist medical care for paediatric CFS/ME, with a view to identifying potential mechanisms of action, and seek funding for a full-scale trial.

Research Team: Dr Emma Anderson, Dr Lucy Beasant, Dr Rebecca Barnes, Dr Nicola Mills, Professor Esther Crawley

The Lightning Process®(LP) is a commercially-available complementary intervention based on Neurolinguistic Programming, Life coaching and Osteopathy. The SMILE trial1,2,3 demonstrated that adolescents with CFS/ME were more likely to improve with LPplus specialist medical care (SMC) compared to SMC alone. We need greater understanding of the LP and how it may benefit patients, looking for potential mechanisms of action that may improve SMC. The aims of this project are to:

• Define LP in the context of established/evidence-based therapies (e.g. CBT/behavioural therapies)
• Analyse practitioner-patient interactions within LP sessions, seeking distinctiveness from SMC sessions (using SMILE Trial recordings)
• Apply for a full-scale trial of LP vs CBT for paediatric CFS/ME

This work is funded by the Linbury Trust.

Centre for Academic Child Health

 

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