Herman Staudenmayer

Environmental Illness

Myth & Reality

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Environmental illness: certain health professionals and clinical ecologists claim it impacts and inhibits 15 percent of the population. Its afflicted are led to believe environmental illness (EI) originates with food, chemicals, and other stimuli in their surroundings -as advocates call for drastic measures to remedy the situation. What if relief proves elusive-and the patient is sent on a course of ongoing, costly and ineffective "treatment"? Several hundred individuals who believed they were suffering from EI have been evaluated or treated by Herman Staudenmayer since the 1970s. Staudenmayer believed the symptoms harming his patients actually had psychophysiological origins-based more in fear of a hostile world than any suspected toxins contained in the environment. Staudenmayer's years of research, clinical work-and successful care-are now summarized in Environmental Illness: Myth & Reality. Dismissing much of the information that has attempted to defend EI and its culture of victimization, Staudenmayer details the alternative diagnoses and treatments that have helped patients recognize their true conditions-and finally overcome them, often after years of prolonged suffering.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: CRC Press
• Seitenzahl: 402
• Erscheinungstermin: 29. September 1998
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 260mm x 183mm x 26mm
• Gewicht: 948g
• ISBN-13: 9781566703055
• ISBN-10: 1566703050
• Artikelnr.: 21655486

Autorenporträt

Staudenmayer\, Herman

Inhaltsangabe

1 What is ""environmental illness""?
What it is not
Examples of what it is
Definitions
Naming the indefinable
Idiopathic environmental intolerances
Clinical ecology and EI advocates
Prevalence
Philosophy of science
Competing theories of EI
Toxicogenic theory
History of EI
Causal agents
Biological mechanisms and susceptibility
Explaining psychological symptoms
Unique principles of toxicology
Politics
EI patients
Symptoms
Strength of belief in EI
Personality and behavioral characteristics
Psychogenic theory
Belief
Stress
response
Psychiatric disorders
Treatment
Conclusion
2 Toxicogenic theory
A tale of misguided exploration
Postulates
Threshold of onset: total body load
Long
term effects
Sensitization
One
molecule effect
Heightened sensation: hyperosmia and cacosmia
Threshold variability
Sensitivity to multiple environmental agents
Tune course of a hypersensitivity reaction
Variability of effects
Addiction to exposure
Auxiliary postulates, the protective belt
Temporal cohesiveness
Demographic diversity
Route of exposure
Dose dependence
Individual variability, uniqueness
Rapid onset and cessation of symptoms
Hypothesized biologic mechanisms
Limbic kindling
Tune
dependent sensitization
Smell and taste
Conclusion
3 Unsubstantiated diagnoses and treatments
Unsubstantiated diagnostic and treatment practices
Provocation
neutralization testing
Sauna depuration
Imprinted water and EMF
Inappropriate use of diagnostic methods
Radiology brain
imaging tests
Neuropsychological testing
Self
report of psychological symptoms
Inappropriate use of treatment methods
Acupuncture
Diagnoses incorrectly attributed to EI
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Candida albicans hypersensitivity, the ""yeast connection""
Conclusion
4 Studies supporting the psychogenic theory
Demographics and psychiatric/psychological conditions
Clinical case reports
Brodsky
Stewart and Raskin
Selneretal
Terr
Fiedler, Maccia, and Kipen
Altenkirch, Hopmann, Brockmeier, and Walter
Witorsch, Ayesu, Balter, and Schwartz
Black
Case
control studies
Pearson, Rix, and Bentley
Simon, Katon, and Sparks
Simon, Daniell, Stockbridge, Claypoole, and Rosenstock
Black, Rathe, and Goldstein
Staudenmayer, Selner, Buhr, and Selner
A cohort study of chronic fatigue
Perplexing questions
Why middle
age?
Why female prevalence?
Symptoms without disease?
5 Assessment of the toxicogenic research program
Critical reports from medical associations
Junk science excluded from the courtroom
Testable hypotheses: provocation challenges
A protocol for provocation chamber challenges
The challenge chamber
Methods of blinding the exposure
Statistical analysis
The case of a true positive responder
Controlled challenges with EI patients
Challenges unanswered
Conclusion
6 Psychogenic theory
A disorder of belief
Psychogenic and psychosomatic illnesses
Psychogenic illness mistaken as asthma
The sick role
History of psychogenic illness: neurasthenia
Primary and secondary gain
Discussion
7 Placebo and somatization
Definitions
The placebo effect as nuisance
Placebo, ritual, and provocation challenges
Factors contributing to the placebo effect
Food intolerance: physiology and immunology
Somatoform disorders
Hypochondriasis
Somatization disorder
Conversion disorder
An EI case of pseudoseizure
Conclusion
8 Learned sensitivity
Pavlovian classical conditioning
Animal conditioning of the immune system
Conditioning after documented exposure
Thinking and learning
Conditioning onset of asthma
Cognitive learning
1886 historical example
Learning to control allergies
Fear and anxiety
Learning and phobia
The psychodynamics of phobia
Discussion
9 The stress
response
Hypothalamic
pituitary
adrenal axis
Psychologic effects of AC1H and corticosteroids
Stress and aging: the glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis
Role of psychological factors
Catecholamine system
Norepinephrine
Epinephrine
Dopamine
Pupillary reflex
Autonomic nervous system
Inhibitory systems
Serotonin
GABA
Opioids and endorphines
Psychoneuroimmunology
Effects of the stress
response on cognition
Conclusion
10 Panic attacks and anxiety disorders
Psychophysiological theories of emotion
Anxiety
Panic attack
Panic disorder
Trme course
DSM
IV criteria for PTSD
Experimental models of PTSD
Learned helplessness
Trme
dependent sensitization
Hyperosmia or cognitive priming?
Conclusion
11 Trauma and post
traumatic stress disorder
War
Epidemiology
Psychophysiology
Cognitive dysfunction
Pre
war risk factors
Childhood trauma and adult sequelae
Childhood emotional deprivation
Childhood physical abuse
Childhood sexual abuse
A case of sexual abuse and EI
Neurobiologic effects of childhood sexual abuse
Conclusion
12 The limbic system and trauma
The limbic system
Electrical stimulation of emotion
Emotions activate the limbic system
Reticular activating system
Disruptive effects of trauma
Limbic system symptoms
PTSD, limbic abnormalities, and trauma
Hippocampal abnormalities
EEG abnormalities
Developmental stage and vulnerability
Conclusion
13 Personality disorders
Depression as a symptom
Personality
Psychological defense mechanisms
Personality disorders
DSM
IV Axis II classification
Self
management of explosive affect
Self
management of implosive affect
A case of folie a deux
Dimensional models of personality
Limitations of categorical diagnoses
Dimensional diagnostic approaches
Discussion
14 Iatrogenic illness: exploitation and harm
A medical cult
Quacks
Patient vulnerability
Devotion to the guru
Bias and expectation invalidate provocation challenges
Doctor's expectation and treatment outcome
Counterphobic rituals and obsessive
compulsiveness
State revokes license of mercury amalgam guru
Harmful effects
The lady in the desert
Isolation and ineffective rituals
Munchausen syndrome by proxy
Where are the bodies?
Discussion
15 Treatment
The path of psychotherapy
Difficult patients and resistance
Transference and countertransference
Hateful and dangerous patients
A depth model for selecting an intervention strategy
Trust, empathy, and rapport
An exposure event as an organizing concept
Pitfalls
The environmental care unit as a sanctuary
Hope, magic, and the art of healing
Psychotherapeutic interventions
Stress management
Behavior modification: systematic desensitization
EI case
report involving desensitization
Cognitive
behavioral therapy
Cognitive distortions
Dichotomous thinking
Selective abstraction
Arbitrary inference
Circular logic
Overgeneralization
Undergeneralization
Catastrophizing
Decatastrophizing
Misattributed causality
Rationalization of lies
Restructuring beliefs
Psychodynamic psychology
Treatment of personality disorders
Psychotropic medications
Discussion
16 Politics
Victims and a herd of sacred cows
Blaming social ills
Reasonable accommodations?
Victims: a neglected population?
Politics of intimidation and the law
Unrealistic product safety regulations
""More research""
Conspiracy theories
Media
Manufacturing industry
Insurance industry
Radical politics
Discussion
17 Future directions
TILT
Scientific honesty
The personal factor in disposing of contradiction
Adversaries
Paradigm shifts
Endless rhetoric
Model for a progressive research program
Objective measurement and biomarkers
Predicted outcomes for competing theories
True positive
False negative
True negative
False positive
Conclusion
Appendix A. A methodology of scientific research programs
Appendix B. Court rulings