Yesterday I had among others, two emails one from Phil Parker which by his request I published in the article: Phil Parker answers 7 questions

The second is the one published below from an ME group in Norway.

If you recall from Phil’s emails he stated, and I quote:

“Many of our findings are concur with those of Dr. Vergard Wyller’s, Norway’s leading M.E researcher.”

See the full email here: Phil Parker answers 7 questions

Eirik says in his email (see the email below for the full text):

“PS: In his reply to question 1 Mr. Parker refers to research done by Dr. Vegard Bruun Wyller.

Mr. Wyller is also under debate here in Norway. Some believe that he is a part of the “Wessely-school”. He was the leader a group investigating diagnosis and treatment of ME/CFS, the equivalent of NICE in England, and concludes that CBT and GET is the only documented treatment for ME/CFS.”

Phil Parker seemed upset in his email to me because despite all his answers I still (personally) concluded that the Lightning Process is a form of psychiatry and therefore I think that Phil Parker (the Lightning Process) appears to assume that CFS/ME is ‘all in the mind’.

Phil Parker was also a little condescending to me with his remarks:

“I thought I was getting involved in a reasoned discussion about the factual aspects of the Process, and yet in spite of every answer I’ve given you about the LP being VERY clear that M.E. is not all in the mind, but is a multi-system illness, you continue to stick to your perspective, which is based on rumour, second or third hand information and not based on any DIRECT experience of the Process.”

See the full email here: Phil Parker answers 7 questions

My understanding is that psychiatric disorders can present physical symptoms ie somatoform disorders, there are 5 subtypes and are distinguished by their physical symptoms. One type – Conversion disorder or hysteria was treated using hypnosis by Charcot a french neurologist in 1870 – 1893 and was considered to be the “Napoleon of Neuroses”. Freud incidentally was a pupil of Charcot. So I think my thoughts about the Lightning Process have been reasonable.

I also understand from my studies and from experience (CFS/ME) that physical imbalances can cause mental disturbance. Please see My Diary of Perrin Treatment for information about that. Therefore I feel that it is a physical treatment that will re-address the physical imbalances that produce CFS/ME.

From Phil Parker’s comments it appears to me that he is frustrated that he cannot persuade me to his way of thinking which makes me wonder about his Lightning Process – is it a training programme of powerful persuasion?

What I feel that Phil is not understanding is that the ME community want to know what his Lightning Process is. No-one disputes that some get well using it. I for one, just wonder why some get well.

“Mens Sana inCorpore Sano” a quote from Leonardo da Vinci. Meaning that it was considered that if the body was healthy the mind would be. It’s an ancient theory backed up with Hippocrates saying: “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food.” So the debate goes on …

Eirik kindly gave me permission to publish his email.

“HI!

I am an administrator of an ME-forum in Norway (ME-forum)

According to Parker when he visited Norway a few weeks back, some 70 % of his patients are from Norway.

Your questions to Mr. Parker on The Lightning Process (LP) and his reply is therefore also of great interest to the Norwegian ME community.

The debate here in Norway is at times very intense. On one hand you have persons who claim that everyone who has benefited from LP do not really have ME, but some sort of psychiatric disease.

On the other hand you have people that believe that persons asking even the slightest question about LP are denying that people have benefited from LP.

Understandably many patients with ME have problems reading and understanding English because of brain-fog.

I therefore ask for your permission to translate the questions asked to and the answers given by Mr. Parker into Norwegian and post them on the two forums for ME in Norway, ours and MENIN

Of course I will provide a link to the original web-site.

Yours truly

Eirik Randsborg

PS: In his reply to question 1 Mr. Parker refers to research done by Dr. Vegard Bruun Wyller.

Mr. Wyller is also under debate here in Norway. Some believe that he is a part of the “Wessely-school”. He was the leader a group investigating diagnosis and treatment of ME/CFS, the equivalent of NICE in England, and concludes that CBT and GET is the only documented treatment for ME/CFS.

He has only conducted research and clinical work on children and adolescents.

I enclose a link to his doctorate paper on ME: Abnormal thermoregulatory responses in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: relation to clinical symptoms.” which is in Norwegian, so click here for the text translated into english: Abnormal thermoregulatory responses in adolescents with chronic fatigue syndrome: relation to clinical symptoms.