NLP - Neuro-linguistic programming

Hi Sharon, I have heard good things about both "treatments" and indeed those it help do very well. A large % of people though dont benefit which is one of the odd things about ME it does seem to help those people who dont have a glandular fever or chest infection type or sinus infections repeatedly starting point for their ME  and most of those it does help seem to have come in from stress related problems as their point of origin before they developed ME. Stress reults in a poorly immune system so these techniques make a lot of sense there. and again i say if anything can make a positive difference then try it!!!

hi sharon. i think the negativity is partly round the fact they consciously mislead with their statistics. i did it twice. only one of us on the course/s were followed up - the one that had a remission. that's 10 ppl who did not have a sustained positive response, who were not part of the stats. well done & congrats to u & ur daughter for ur success.

My negativity about the lightning process is because the originator makes so much money from it, and when people get helped and train to be practitioners they're not allowed to tell anyone how to do it or how it works. There isn't even a book about it for people who don't have much money, which is a lot of us because we can't work.

I just feel that it's so cruel to withold it from people who can't afford it and use it as such an expensive product. I did mentioned that I was offered it from donations from the local ME group and refused it.

the LP & similar 'supposed to cure' ME/CFS modlaities are all built on 'corporate/marketing strategies': that includes talking up the modality, overstating it's results, charging lots & creating 'exclusivity' & mystique around them to draw in the desperate to get better ME'r. there is no mystique to the LP. it's just aggressive coaching that uses aspects of CBT, NLP & other fluffy cliches. having said that, the application of these modalities can help manage this & other conditions.

wonder if anybody saw a wonderful prog about the 'placebo' effect on bbc 4 last night ???

??

No I didn't see that programme but part of my degree studies have been about the 'placebo effect' and I'm all for it as long as we don't have to be ripped off in the process.

how interesting? what's the title/subject area of ur degree? bet that keeps ur brain from rusting over.

what i found fascinating about this prog/study. was one of the participants who had severe IBS was given a 'placebo' in the trial. she was told it was a placebo i.e. a sugar pill and it still worked. she was given a 'course' of sugar pills over a defined period of time. however, when she completed the course, & she had no sugar pills left, the IBS came back with a vengance. she even tried to buy some (placebos) @ her local pharmacy and was told that no body manafacutred 'placebos' (sugar pills) except for specific studies. so she's back to square one with the IBS again.

this 'Horizon' prog. set out to try to understand what was the underpinning mechanisms that made the 'placebo' effective. as we all know there is no full stop in science or medicine. so to date, they hypothesize that the emotions of 'Anticipation/Expectation & Belief' activate the brains internal opioid pharmacy. one of the chemical's studied was PGE 2, which causes us to feel less pain. i think we could apply this model of thinking to Mary's dating project -Anticipation/Belief/Expectation. think of the power of the many albeit in via the ether..........still powerful???

interesting and its these ovelaps cases that make it very important to find the root casues of the ME group of illnesses. It should be that one treatment helps all to varying degrees but it doesnt. Mitochondial support helps another group but doesnt help all and of course you get the Thyroxin supported people. We need the test that says your ME type and can direct you from there, we need the medics to accept the illness and  to do all the tests including the range of Thyroid tests at least then more people would get better, as you have! well done i am jealous, made it to remission once want to do it again but less likely due to heart problems... but i am trying...

yes, GeorgiaS that's how i see it too. i have seen a few recover from ME/CF having completed the LP. i believe for thoes ppl who did 'recover', their bodies had already recovered but their mind was still in 'sick gear'. the LP just kick started it back into healthy gear. the ppl that i know who say they have recovered, the majority have not gone back to full time work. most do part time work (some being LP facilitators). again those that i know who consider themselves 'cured' are still succeptible to set backs (relapses) if/when they over do it.

Well said Caitlin!

Got a good feeling its not for me at present, but then it won't start until end of year.  Hey there in for such a shock, they haven't seen the state of my body yet

Eat good healthy food and learn about herbs first is what I recommend. I'm a lot better than I was.

Thank you for responding personally i would ask you to stay interested, NLP and its like are interesting And you should never feel you have to justify being well! I am glad you are, what i am interested in too is why it works for some people and why it doesnt for others... At some point there has to be more focus on which type of ME CFS someone has and their path then guided into the best known treatments for that casue. NLP may well be one of those paths, i also think thank some anti virals could be tried along with herbs pacing etc and looking more closely at the role of the thyroid and indeed if it is the thyorid thats is also sick the whole package would help people bits chosen here and there will be down to being the right person in the right state for that treatment, not the best answer 

"The premise that was worked on when we took the LP was that our bodies were producing adrenaline in huge amounts and we learnt to cut into the physical process of producing the adrenaline by using the LP – personally I think it consists mainly of NLP."

If the claims about adrrenaline were true they could be verified through objective testing. The LP is full of claims about our bodies, and our minds ability to influence them, that are not supported by the evidence. When lots of patients are paying a lot of money for a treatment which does not help them and is built upon false claims about their illness, it is not surprising that this leaves so many feeling angry and ripped off.

there will be spelling mistakes - i started to proof read but gave up, sorry,

Hi Fidd, the claims about stress hormone reduction were proved in meditation studies (no i cant give the links... but do remember reading it honest!)  which while different to NLP is similar enough that i suspect the result would be the same. As has been said before if one treatment fixed all then ME / CFS would be better dealt with. I dont think NLP PMA Mindfullness or herbs vitamins et al are by themselves an answer for All ME/CFS however for some they may be. Sadly NLP/PMA/MIndfulness only helps me a very small amount Herbs help a bit And i want to know more about Thyroxine / Thyroid support NLP like most hypnosis or Mindfullness works but only when it is accepted and worked on by that person (when the person in also in the right physiologocal state with the right illness) so again it is interesting how it can work whether by placebo effect or actual effect for some it does work. It is very expensive and knowing what i do it is too expensive for me to try when i doubt it will work as i am still struggling with coping let alone getting better. However All information is valid and can be used. I for one would have liked this person to keep in touch rather than her giving up like this does she keep well or does she slip back into ill health? for one same for her daughter - i started with Glandualr fever then added recurrent chest infections then to sinus infections, i am confident mine is a bug / virus root cause... i did achieve remission for two or three years, now however... NLP should have been supported by people willing to be pragmatic and doing the right experiments but when even the drugs companies are selective with their results then they just followed the trend... and no i am not an NLP supporter just want all the info... and as i am rambling now i am done ...    

No worries about typos.

I don't think that it's accurate to say 'all information is valid' though - with CFS there's a lot of nonsense out there!

That meditation/relaxation techniques/etc have some affect on brain chemistry does nothing to validate the claims made as part of LP.

I think that some people are happy to make money from using our devloping understanding of the brain to justify unfounded claims about their ability to help and treat sick and desperate people. I'd like to see more rigour and commitment to the evidence in this area.

It sounds like LP and NLP are methods that help reduce the drive of the sympathetic nervous system.  Many people are in sympathetic over drive (fight or flight mode) and would benefit in redressing the balance with more parasympathetic nervous activity.  there are many techniques that might help be they those you mentioned, mindfulness, hypnosis, reflextherapy, yoga, guided imagery etc .  You have to pick the ones that work for you.  Guided imagery doesn't do it for me but I love some of the other techniques.  Incidentally, exercise stimulates the sympathetic drive, hence not recommended in the early stages of recovery.  

the LP that i did focused on the resetting of an oversensitized dysregulated amygdala. LP practitioners hypothize that, the amygdala, in response to shock, (ptsd), environmental factors - infection (bacterial/viral), poisoning etc., gets stuck in the flight/fright/freeze setting point. in other words 'amygdala hijack' becomes it's default setting. consequently the whole brain circuitary, (including the HPA) remain in a permanent state of over arousal. the training was about raising our awareness of our automatic responses to stimuli, whether thoughts/beliefs/emotions/feelings/behavior or actions. the goal was to immediately intercept the negative response and ''coach'' onself into an ''automatic'' alternative positive response there & then. the coaching was the gestalt (empty chair) approach. u dialogued with urself as to what OUTCOME u wanted in response to an emotion/pain/feeling/situation right now - the positive or the same ole, same ole negative outcome?? u had to make an, on the spot, 'conscious choice' everytime u felt the least hint of negativity/energy depletion/ pain etc enter ur consciousness & go tru the whole process/dialogue each time. u had to physically change places from when u were the ''coach'' to when ur were being (self) coached. the bottom line was: to replace negative AUTOMATIC responses with AUTOMATIC positive responses/choices. and u congratulated urself each time u succeeded. ME/CFS language was banned ie. words like 'crash'/'spent' etc etc. it was v. repetitive. i hope that makes sense as i have tried to summarise & 'simplify' it.

Or watch a comedy?

absolutely!  the advice that helped me, included laughing or watching/listening to something funny for a minimum of half hour per day..

 

I still make lying down and listening to comedy a priority!  In fact I make cossetting myself a priorty, and no one is going to...

I haven't got ME, I'm just peeved!