Thank to Marvin for posting this. It fits well with
Barrett's ramblings about fad diseases, all in you head
ZZzz, imagined conditions and people are too stupid to know
when they are sick.All in the name of being in bed with
chemical companies.
Jan
Quoted message said:Psycholobabble...
The entity *somatization disorder* is psychobabble and is
obtained from the DSM-IV manual and is used by psychologists
and psychiatrists.MD's have borrowed the entity for their
own uses. It is a spurious diagnosis with no laboratory
indicators.
that somatization disorder is a kind of junk category into
which physicians dump patients presenting with
mind/behaviorialsymptoms and/or a history of such which the
physician does not fancy or understand, especially if the
patient does not present with symptoms or symptoms which are
not separate diagnoses (also anon-scientific way of
separating symptoms and causality) . I mentiont his because
mercury and lead are both known to cause primarily
"psychiatric" symptoms, with a history of emotional
instability, etc.in patients.
So a "scientist" is someone who makes "a priori" judgements
about what neurological symptoms a heavy metal poisoned
patient can and cannot have. A "scientist" demands
laboratory indicators whenever his fraternity does so. When
the fraternity does not do so, the esteemed scientist Rx's
Prozac like *mad*. But if the patient's complaints appear in
some kind of package which don't meet the prejudices of the
male clinician/voodoo doctor, then it's necessary to pull
out theDSM-IV manual and wax on about scientific discipline
and create from thin air a "somatization disorder".
It's just another way of saying that one can create a loose
definition of a nebulous condition and then stretch it to
label anything which appears bizarre, so that rather than
actually diagnose and solve problems you can dump the ones
you don't like into the recycle bin andlet the DSM-IV manual
thumpers profit from the stash. That way everybody is happy.
The male voodoo doctor gets to see himself as a scientist
and the psych therapist gets another client.
I believe that SD is used by doctors who do not like the
idea that conditiions which affect the brain cause certain
mental states and behaviors which are not in keeping with
their own requirements for how disease is supposed to
manifest in the human body. I believe the medical profession
has an alliance with the psych profession because they share
a common belief system.
No, the starting point is to go back to college and unlearn
the psychobabble taught to physicians in med school. But
that cannot be done--with all the psychological investments
involved in the career and selfhood and one's supremecy of
being--so instead one wages war on the Chronic Fatigue,
Fibromyalgia, and Multiple Chemical Sensitivitysyndromes,
since these syndromes are diseases of both body and brain,in
which affective disorders are documented in all three. But
since the Freudian-psychobabble-educated physician suffers
cognitivedissonance when presented with these, the syndromes
must be attacked. Continuing education is not an option.
Instead, reality must be shaped to fit the psychological
needs of the profession, and the patients need to be hazed.
So rather than counsel with a psychotherapist over issues of
selfhood and megalomania and deep insecurity which interfere
with the process of continuing education--which is also the
scientific process itself--it is necessary to reformulate
these disease syndromes so that they fit into the 20th-
century mind-body conceptual dualism taught to physicians,
in which brain diseases are separate from diseases of
thebody and mind states are separate from both. This needs
to be done despite the fact that poisons such as lead and
mercury have been known for 100 years to poison the brain,
body, and mind all at the same time. So Science needs to be
bent and manipulated to serve a profession which maintains a
conceputal framework which is not rooted in Science, and
those teachings must be maintained for those sychologically
inclined to conservatism and intellectual dominance,all
properly wrapped in the impressive rhetoric of scientific
and clinical objectivity.
A lot of your responses are flak garbage which you use to
exhaust pariticpants. I made my position perfectly clear.
Decades of psychobiological research, including century-long
scientfically acquired knowledge on the effect of poisons
such as heavy metals on the brain, show that mood and mental
states can and do derive fromorganic origins. Meanwhile state-
credentialed MD's are writing books and articles about how
biological psychiatry is "pseudoscience", a"myth", and a
"fraud". On *this* subject the present generation is
corrupt, and is not going to give up its intellectual
commitment to the psychobabble it received in med school.
On the issue of MCS, ascribing "affective disorders" to
"psychologicalf actors" is an opinion which is rammed
through as Science. It is accompanied by dismissive
descriptions of mind states and behavior of the patients,
with all kinds of unscientific judgements andassumptions as
to 1) whether those mind states and behavior arelegitimate
(e.g. fear of chemicals, stress of chronic illness), and
2)whether the mind states and behavior have an organic or
non-organic origin.
MCS *will* receive a fair hearing only when the medical
profession gives up its intellecutal commitment to the
teachings of psychology as the only explanation for how mind
states and behavior alter with disease.
You asked me for evidence of "mind-body conceptual dualism"
and I just gave an example from a psychobabbling physician
in this thread. Your technique is to bait and throw out
idiotic flak, so that now we can have a separate existential
debate as to whether there really is adualistic mind-body
conception in modern medicine.
Yes, physicians do recognize a connection between the two--
they call it somatization disorder. That is, your boyfriend
broke up with you and you are self-pitiful due to your past
child raising and have along history of maladaptive
behaviors and you have sunken into depression and can't
concentrate and now your immunity has sunk and now you have
an infection etc etc. They may *also* talk about
a"psychological component" as being the result of chronic
stress from the illness.
But the medical profession is selective about when the
connection operates in one direction vs. the other.
The fact is, there isn't an economy for the problem of
chronic mercury and lead exposure causing maladaptive
dysfunctional unhealthy minds and behaviors. Not because the
science doesn't exist to support it. But because the economy
doesn't exist to produce the professional intellect to
study, talk about, and treat it. The psychotherapists and
psychologists would be in less demand. There would be no
drugs to patent. Hence the facts are dropped from
consciousness. That mercury and lead f**k up people's
emotions and minds (in addition to a hundred other symptoms)
is so dropped out of consciousness that MD's can write books
that argue that Biological Psychiatry is a fraud.
As a result, one must conclude that MCS is not caused by poisons--
which just about everyone who has the illness and has
clinical experience treating it argues--but rather is a
somatization disorder.
This is how economy and professional cultures distort
reality and allow ingrained assumptions and bias to
manipulate and distort the process of scientific inquiry.
No, many physicians recognize that they are often dealing
with illnesses that involve both the mind & the body. It
would seem as if you are attributing their admission of this
fact to some sort of denial instead. Incorrect. But commonly
the same conclusion that some patients erroneously arrive at
if the doc declines to attribute the illness to physical
factors alone.
This thread is in the context of MCS. Within the context of
this subject physicians *do not* generally conceive or
discuss depression*or* anxiety in any terms other than the
psychologist's, regardless *how* the psychologist constructs
the relationship, it is the*psychologist's* constructiona
and the psychologist's ideology. The very own terminology
employed by the author of the medical textbook cited, who is
at the pro-MCS end of the debate *within* the mainstream, is
that it is an illness with "psychological factors".
Since you mention arthritis in the context of this thread on
MCS (which is a disease its propopents argue is the result
of*poisoning*), I will say that poisons such as lead and
mercury commonly causes brain symptoms *first*, because
these poisons are emically attracted to brain tissue. The
first stage of these poisonings is commonly brain symptoms
only. Patients may suffer depression or anxiety for *years*
before the symptoms originating in organs *below neck*
emerge in sufficient degree to cause the patient to seek
care. So the depression in these cases does *not* follow
arthritis and the depression is not something
"psychological" *asdistinct* from the physical. The
depression is not of the"psychological" domain. It is a
physical symptom no less than arthritis. It is not a
"component" and it is not a "factor". It is a*symptom*.
The problem is conceptualizing depression and anxiety as
being in adifferent category than "physical" symptoms. This
division in thought is reflected by your own use of language
and the very manner in which you discuss depression in
relation to other symptoms. Depression commonly bears no
relation to the other symptoms except they both share a
similar cause in some *poison* which has attacked the brain
together with other organs in the body.This conceptualizing
is largely responsible for the opposition to these diseases
by the medical profession.>
Depression is not a *component* by "a priori" assumption. If
doctors want to assume the nature of the pathology in a
conceptual framework and language *originated by
psychologists*, then they should seek psychology as a career
and *not* human physiology. If doctors want to educate us
about how depression affects human health--but *not* how
mercury and lead affect affect brain and emotional and
mental health--then they should be psychologists and lecture
on Ophrah Winfrey, but *not* manipulate the research and
interpretation of MCS research by projecting their own
indoctrination onto reality.>
Depression needn't be a *component* and it needn't be a
*factor *simply because psychologists (and physicians loyal
to their ideology) insist that it be so.
I do not agree that I am arguing with myself and I do not
agree we are simply talking about terminology. I have a good
first-hand understanding of the disease, I have a good
understanding of non-mainstream discussions of the disease,
and I have good understanding of mainstream discussions of
the disease. Within the mainstream the depression/anxiety is
presently discussed as being a"factor" or "component"--*not*
a symptom. Ten years ago the depression/anxiety was
discussed as being *causative*. There has beena gradual
shift in language as the disorder has been
*grudgingly*accepted as being somatic, but the acceptance
has been gradual, in which the depression/anxiety has
altered from being "primary" to being a "factor" or a
"component". No this is not simply terminology but reflects
changing conceptions of the disease as the medical society
isslowly accepting that chemical intolerance exists, but
cannot shake lose its belief system for how depression and
anxiety play a role in these diseases.
You say that much is not understood about the disease. Then
I expect that the medical society which you defend *suspend*
its assumptiosn about depression/anxeity being primary *or*
a "component" or "factor"in any causative way regarding
chemical intolerance, and to cease using language which
communicates that very conception.
A neurologist who has decribed what actually happens in MCS
is that the brain is abnormally stimulated by the chemical
and an electrochemical reaction occurs in the brain in which
the neurotoxicant glutamate is released and brain cells
swell and the patients suffers debiliitating symptoms. He
further states that this process is a process of ongoing
injury to brain cells, a disease of pre-existing brain cell
injury with continuing brain cell injury uponchemical
exposures. He reached these conclusions after studying
changes in EEG measurements in which patients were exposed
tochemicals such as paint, gasoline, perfume, lacquer, etc.
He found wildly altering EEG measurements upon chemical
exposure and found evidence of dementia in the patient in
various areas of the brain, with brain function
deteriorating upon exposure. This neurologist'sattempt 10
years ago to gather a scientific audience for his
findingsresearch was frustrated and obstructed while at the
same time descriptions by mainstream medical scientists and
professionals of "affective disorders" being primary or a
causitive "factor" or"component" are accepted without
question. I think that if one examines the *neurological*
observations made and explanations advanced for what is
happening in the brain upon chemical exposures, one would
find the descriptions of "affective disorders" and
"somatization disorders" as being causitive
"components"/"factors" to be asinine in their utter vacuity
with regard to the subject.
So I do not even agree with the primacy which is given to
anxiety/depression in these diseases because examinations of
the disease which actually have some neurobiological depth
find that anxeity/depression have little to do with the
disease process. It is a sideshow produced by persons who
know nothing of the disease and are prefectly content to
send both the patients and neurological investigations into
their disease into the garbage chute. What has been occuring
has been a type of medical and sociological final solution
to a disease and its sufferers which appear to be bizarre to
many uninformed.
But because the numbers of affected is so high, the culture
and the society is forced to make some kind of adjustments
in its willingness to admit the reality of the disease, but
because it resists explanations outside of the intellectual
box it has been taught, it still cannot accept chemical
intolerance because it cannot fit the emical intolerance
together with the affective disorders, because it is not
willing to alter its dogma regarding how affective
disorders present themselves with other brain symptoms in
body-brain diseases.
No I'm sorry but this is not simply about terminology.
Don't kid yourselves. If you think the debate is resolved by
physicians who like to throw around big terms like
"somatization" as if they are experts on the topic, don't
kid yourselves. Go get your Shrink's license and do the kind
psycho babbling and psycho labelling instead of passing
yourselves off as honest scientists. In that role, rather
than as the frustrated shrinks you presently are, you can
get all the hard-ons you want writing profiles for Abnormal
Psychology journals.
By the way, I just recently spoke to a mother of an autistic
child who said her child has "raging" chemical
sensitivities. This I think will demand some more inventive,
delusional, and self-elevating psychobabble from frustrated
psychologists in the physicians lounge. Autistic children
make good meat for physicians contemptuous of new diseases
which stretch their education.
Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Multiple
Chemical Sensitivity syndromes are beyond the medical
education and intellect of the present generation. The
medical textbooks which properly deal with these diseases
medically and scientifically will be written by the next
generation. The present generation of sci/med professionals
generally will protect its intellectual turf until it
retires, and hese patients will be scoffed at, ridiculed,
marginalized etc. until fresh yound minds, which will not
find these diseases to be strange, will give these diseases
the study and respect they deserve