It is disappointing that she has taken the path of extreme cultural relativism. No, superstitious beliefs are not equivalent to scientific understanding even within the individuals culture. This is true because such superstitions do not allow individuals to operate within the world as effectively as true beliefs do and everyone's culture exists within the profane realities of the world
I think because she takes a strictly clinical approach, she recognises that the beliefs of different cultures have real effects on the body. For us it might be a 'stress' headache, for another culture it may be a demon. The headache is real in both cases. And she's obviously very dedicated to helping people. The question of whether or not the stimulus is real is not the focus.
I think she's shooting herself in the foot. Because the whole point of science is to explain complexity . But if she says no need to be robust about science despite how far it has taken us, but rather revert to primitive beliefs like polio is caused by evil spirits, therefore, we can beat the victim to drive the evil spirits, then this kind of projection is problematic.
Omg, The Sleeping Beauties is literally the last book I read and it's really really good!! Finished it less than a week ago...this is such an awesome coincidence, can't wait to listen to (and watch) the podcast!
It's interesting how the PLACEBO/NOCEBO works, even when the person is AWARE of that! BTW, there's a great Cautionary Tales episode ( Mummy's Curse) that shows how easily one can be led down erroneous beliefs!
No brain, no mind. It´s all about our brains. Seems to me, living in Finland (next door neighbor of Sweden), that those children in Sweden, are taught to behave like that. Because they are now living in the civilized part of the world, they will get best possible care (shelter, nutrition...). People, especially children, are taken care of here in Scandinavia. Similar cases should be found elsewhere, for their weird conditions to be proven truthfull, I think.
Reality is subjective because the tools for our discernment are subjective. Meaning, everyone is trapped in a reality created by our brain processing emotion, facts, alternative facts, stories, our five senses, psychological processes, and the the many other processes (tools) we know exist and others we have yet to discover. This is why there are so many religions, wars, conspiracy theories etc. How can we agree on anything if we don't know how reality is created in the human mind.
reality/existence is not subjective. It's when we apply our subjective senses is when things resolve to opinion. The Moon exists whether we can observe it or not. It has existed before us bald apes came on the seen, looked up and uttered a word to name it.
Fascinating and a great guest - will be listening to this over weekend. Further comment after this...Michael's channel "ought" to have load more subscribers
With regards to the cases in Sweden, the best cure was to give the asylum seekers a permanent residence. When the government changed the rules, and introduced temporary permits, doctors were faced with difficulties on how to cure the children. They needed to find a new method, so after a few alternatives they simply separated the parents from the children (in hospital). In one case, after one hour the child “woke up” from the state he/she was in, and in an another case, it took about 4 hours before the child was free from all symptoms. Later on, it became known that in many of these cases, it was rather the parents who forced their children to simulate these apathetic symptoms. One of these children, Nermin, spoke out about it, saying he was only 12 years old when he wanted to take his own life. Not because of the fear of getting sent back to the hell hole from which he came from. Rather it was because no one could see what his parents was doing to him: they forced him to sit in a wheelchair, at home, not being able to play with other children outside, they force-fed him with liquid food and therefore deprived him of any real food.
Dr. Suzanne please please write a guide book on how people should deal with family members that are impacted by psychosomatic illness. Currently there is nothing out there to teach us about how to be and how to communicate with people that are obviously affected. My mother in law was recently seen by a psychiatrist and the terms used in her assessment were: anxious catastrophization and misinterpretation of bodily sensations. After 3 gruelling years of constant doctors, weekly A&E visits, consistent dismissal from medical professionals because her symptoms weren't explained by the multitude of tests and sent home with 'go see your Gp' she's now reached rock bottom along with us her family. Something like this could have been tackled successfully years ago if it was taken more seriously. We were never equipped with the knowledge of how to deal with something like this and although very much understanding of the fact she's struggling mentally, we've also lost our patience and when it got too much, we gave up and expected her to sort herself out which never happened. A few years later, we now realise that these people cannot heal themselves without professional help especially victims of traumatic abuse. Every day she finds a new symptom that gives her an excuse to visit A&E and she's treated like she's lying. I worry that we also made the situation worse that by understanding what is happening to her in her mind, we did not know and still don't know how to properly communicate with her to aid reduce her anxiety while awaiting for some sort of treatment. You have so much experience in communicating with people affected, please share with us how us normal folks how we can learn to deal with something like this. After all she will probably always have a tendency to relapse and we will have to manage this for the rest of our lives.
It seems to me that someone who suffers from a psychosomatic disorders could be excellent candidates for hypnotherapy. Would I be wrong in this? As long as the individual is suffering from psychological and not a psychiatric disease. Think of it as software psychological vs. Hardware psychiatric. We are after all by nature a highly suggestable species.
I work with psychosomatic symptoms, and I can talk to symptoms, to extract the inner connections. I will extract the deep meaning, so person would understand. I am ready to talk to you
Important topic, but my gosh tortured language. The battle between "mind" and brain. Whatever happened to persons? Sorry, but I can't avoid thinking of Thomas Szasz who spent a lifetime discussing such matters so well. And as far as Szasz, goes, for the last time, HE WASN'T AN ANTI-PSYCHIATRIST! Anyway, thanks for letting me comment.
Sounds like Skeptic magazine found a science skeptic. THIS neurologist evidently just discovered psychogenic seizures, a subset of psychosomatic expression that is not neurological in nature and cultural relativism within which psychiatric conditions are judged to be or not be impairing and therefore fulfilling or not fulfilling DSM disorder criteria wherein impairment is a key characteristic.
Wow, that having to repeatedly rewind to hear something you missed but then keep getting distracted and miss it again and again is something I do way way too often. It's really comforting to know I'm in good company. There's also checking the time by looking at watch or phone or whatever and having someone ask you mere seconds later for the time and having to look again because the info simply isn't in your head, gone within a second or two, so why did you look to begin with you idiot? Maybe it's your mind is wanting to know if the time is within a range, or it's at least or most some specific time it's aware of but you're not so that box gets ticked but the actual information of what time it is doesn't register in a consciously accessible place. Goddamn minds treat our conscious selves with such contempt sometimes, it's probably laughing at us all the time for being oblivious fools.
I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet but I’ve always had the same mindset and critique about “mental health” stuff that it seems like she does. This should be interesting
On the various occasions that I've been hypnotized, it certainly _felt_ different compared to how I was felt before and after even though I was alert the whole time.
1:01:10 About the whole "sonic weapons are impossible" point, did she use the wrong term? American police and military have been openly using them for some time now, a google search brings them right up. The military has versions that are outside of hearing range that use other frequencies that go into the microwave end of the em spectrum but they're essentially the same tech. Noone's hiding them, the manufacturer's websites have demonstration videos explaining how they work. Here's one from USFORCESTV on youtube posted in 2012: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kzG4oEutPbA.html
Yes, these sonic weapons are well known. However, I wonder if they are thinking of weapons being used chronically to make people ill rather than acutely to deter proximity. Otherwise it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Maybe Skeptic/Dr Shermer reads these comments and can clarify.
Very interesting conversation. Hypnosis is LARP’ing, people are dying to play a part. Hypnotist is the director, the ‘hypnotized’ are the stars, and the hypnotist tells the stars what the scene is. LARP’ing is fascinating psychology, hypnosis is as useful as flat earth theory.
Makes you wonder how many times the agressive treatment of a early found "harmless tumor" acctually causes the death of the patient. "You have a tumor, you must get hard treatment before it gets too big". Never would had done so.
I like how Michael automatically knows what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't without looking at any evidence. I also like how Suzanne is so confident of her soundness of mind that if it happens to her, it is automatically deemed normal.
I've suspected for a while now that my chronic pain (fibromyalgia- type pain) is at least partially psycho-somatic in origin. The problem is, how would you really know? The doctors I have seen have been useless. I found the comparison to hypnotism to be very interesting though. Especially when looking at how the subconscious plays a role in this. I also have ADHD and tend to be on auto-pilot a lot. I've told people before that I am at the mercy of my subconscious...many times it's how I function. I rely on intuition more than most people. There is nothing "woo" about what I mean here. I just mean I know things without knowing how I know...so I assume it's subconscious knowledge. For example I can take a test and feel like I'm guessing on every single answer, yet still make a 100. So if having a "strong" subconscious can lead to psycho-somatic disorders, this could explain why so many people find relief from meditation. I think it might be time to give that a try again.
Hey there please look up nichole stachs , dr sarno and dr Howard shubinar they have all healed people from all kinds of illness including fibromyalgia through expressive writing and spasific mindfulness . Dr shubinar is one of the top pain specialists in the world .
@@jamescharles4958 Thank you, that is a really interesting suggestion. I looked him up and read some about him just now. I can say that Tension Myositis Syndrome does sound EXACTLY like what I experience. And I don't doubt that repressing emotions (something I excel at lol) can contribute to this type of pain. I recently had an experience at a new job where I was thrown into it with very little training and had to endure abuse from customers who were angry that I was unable to provide the quality of service that they felt entitled to. As my anxiety and anger rose I could feel the muscles in my upper back and neck tense up and start to tingle. After that day I experienced an exacerbation of pain and knew if was directly attributed to my emotional state at that moment. A few hours of intense repressed emotion led to a week of severe muscle tension and pain. So I know there is a connection. I don't like that Dr. Shubinar's methods are not accepted by 99% of mainstream medicine....though I do think that mainstream medicine often does more harm than good and doctors are taught to disregard the mind-body connection in med school so they become gate-keepers of mainstream medicine and blind to the problems this causes. I like to be cautious, but not closed minded about alternative medicine. Heck, I've always said even if something works because of placebo...it still WORKS and that's the important part. All that to say, thank you. I'll continue to look into him and the other doctors you suggested further. :)
@@chewyjello1 hi where did you see that it's not excepted by 99 % of medicine ? He has run loads of experiments . Join the fb group journal speak . There are thousands of people on there who have healed from chronic pain fibro me/ cfs and even lupus . Please join this group . Please please . Its helped my pain incredibly . I was bedridden for 2 years there and I'm 3 weeks in and I'm not 100 % but I'm drffo 70 percent better
I'm really sorry to answer again but I've looked that up and i cant find any info that dr Howard Scubinar is not accepted by medicine . Like he in on the list of best doctors in America and is continually running clinical studdies and is a leading pain researcher world wide . Sorry but I just dont want people to see that comment when I cant find that info anywhere . Maybe you are talking about dr sarno who is dead but he came up with this idea in the 1990s and he healed some 10000 people in his time but he had a massive struggle to get doctors to listen to him .
I understand her hesitancy but we need more people with a scientific mind to talk about rapid onset gender dysphoria and related issues openly if reason is to win out over post-modern fanaticism
