Tag Archives: dr caroline leaf

COVID and Caroline Leaf

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How Coronavirus is highlighting the flaws in Dr Leaf’s ministry

COVID-19.  Insidious.  Deadly.  Eroding, sculpting the bedrock of our society like the wind and waves change the shoreline, but in a fraction of the time, as if the foundations of our society – our health, our economy, our social connections – were made of soft clay.

As a doctor on the frontline, I’m witnessing first-hand the effects of just what COVID-19 is doing to our collective health.  Thankfully as a general practitioner in Australia, my experience is different to those in a hospital in London or New York.  I’m seeing the distress in my community as social distancing is slowing the spread of the viral malaise, but is creating an economic one.  In London and New York, doctors, nurses and other front-line healthcare workers are dealing with a nightmarish outbreak of COVID-19 with the virus claiming thousands of lives.  Still, whatever our experiences, novel coronavirus has changed our lives forever as we all play our part to help flatten the curve, help those who are sick, and stop the spread of this pernicious disease.

How is “Doctor” Leaf responding to COVID?  In fairness, she is doing better than some so-called ‘wellness’ experts and other heavily deluded self-proclaimed health gurus … gurus like celebrity chef Pete Evans, who is currently under investigation by the Therapeutic Goods Administration in Australia for spruiking a $14,990 device he claims to “replicate light, frequencies, harmonics, pulsed electromagnetic fields and voltage that are found in nature” to cure COVID.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist.  More than 20 years ago, she wrote a PhD on a learning program developed for an educational setting.  She’s not a medical doctor.  She is not an epidemiologist or a public health physician.  She is no more qualified to give advice on COVID than my hairdresser is.

Which is why Dr Leaf has been more subtle in how she has been approaching her COVID coverage.  She’s largely been distancing herself from delivering advice, and instead, using other ‘experts’ to sell her message.  Having said that, Dr Leaf took it upon herself to tell her audience about how they could protect themselves from COVID in episode 138 of her podcast “Cleaning Up the Mental Mess”. Unfortunately, amongst some very reasonable advice which she’d clearly read direct from the CDC website, she also recommended people to stockpile food, that panicking about COVID would create a toxic state in your body that was worse than the virus itself, and that eating garlic, Echinacea, ginger or going in a sauna would kill the virus and boost your immune system (and there were lots of other clangers, but that’s a whole post all on its own).  In short, don’t consult Dr Leaf for medical advice.  Talk to a real doctor.

Some of Dr Leaf’s guests appear to have excellent credentials.  And some of the information they’re promoting in Dr Leaf’s podcasts hasn’t been totally wrong about COVID.  It’s the same information as what every other epidemiologist and public health official has been saying since COVID-19 spread from Wuhan and took hold in other countries.  If some of the key messaging in Dr Leaf’s podcasts is directly transcribed from the CDC, and given that it’s a message that everyone needs to hear right now, then it’s a good thing that she’s been able to get such important information to her followers.

However, Dr Leaf has also been capitalising on the COVID crisis.  First, Dr Leaf has been slipping her own pseudoscientific messages into the podcasts.  For example, in a recent episode of her podcast specifically about COVID-19 (episode 145), Dr Leaf waited until right at the very end to slip in “the importance of gut health for immunity”.  Actually, your gut has nothing to do with your immunity.  This trope is an old faithful that is constantly trotted out by every pseudoscientist and alternative practitioner for years.  Don’t get me wrong, eating well is good for you, but you’re not going to stop yourself from getting COVID-19 just by eating plants.

Dr Leaf has also been using her podcasts as a perverse promotional platform for all manner of products.  They include her own products … “Join my Peace During the Pandemic Challenge! All you have to do is download my brain detox app SWITCH and work through the 21 day program in the app! A 3 month subscription is on sale now for less 50%.”  You can also get 25% off all of her other books, DVDs, and workbooks.

She also shamelessly promotes unproven treatments from those who sponsor her.  These include the books of those who go on her show, like that of Dr Will Bulsiewicz, promoting his plant-fed mantra like other wellness gurus following in the style of the discredited Dean Ornish (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-almost-everything-dean-ornish-says-about-nutrition-is-wrong/).

Then there are those who sponsor Dr Leaf’s podcasts – BLUblox who sell you glasses to “protect” you from exposure to that “harmful blue and green light” which the American Academy of Ophthalmology has confirmed isn’t actually harmful.

Then there’s Ned, Dr Leaf’s “favourite” drug dealers who want to sell you the negligible benefits of “medicinal” marijuana.  In later podcasts, Dr Leaf find a new “favourite” drug dealer, “Feals CBD (the best CBD out there!): To get 50% off your Feals CBD order see https://feals.com/drleaf. Have questions about CBD? Feals has a free hotline and text message support to help guide your personal experience!”

Many people have said that COVID is bringing out the best and the worst in people.  We’ve seen it played out in all sorts of ways – healthcare workers who heroically turn up for work to care for their patients, often without the Personal Protective Equipment that they so desperately need, and who have paid the ultimate price, while on the opposite end, some people in the community hoard food, medicines and toilet paper, or take the opportunity to price-gouge for essential items (including medical equipment making access to PPE even harder for healthcare workers).

In using this crisis to promote her own unscientific, unproven treatments, and in continuing to shamelessly promote the baseless false cures of others, Dr Leaf is much less the hero than what she is making herself out to be.  She might not be hoarding toilet paper or wasting masks, but using a global pandemic to defraud people in the middle of a global health crisis and economic depression is distinctly distasteful.

But the other thing that COVID-19 is highlighting is the folly of Dr Leaf’s teaching that “75 to 98 percent of mental and physical illness come from our thought life”.  To Dr Leaf’s pre-COVID audience, this seemed like an eminently plausible statement at face-value.  We’ve all been brought up in western countries with immunisations and strong health systems, and prior to COVID, a rampant viral plague with a huge death toll has been unimaginable.  So of course it seems like all of our illnesses, like heart disease and cancer and the like, might possibly be linked with our thinking.

Except that Dr Leaf’s fallacious factoid only seems plausible in the western context.  Take away the protection of a first-world health system – general practitioners and other forms of primary care, hospitals, sanitation, public health protection and immunisations – and the illusion that our thoughts make any difference to our health simply vaporises.

For most third-world countries, endemic plagues that carry a high mortality are almost a part of life.  Mara et al state, “At any given time close to half of the urban populations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America have a disease associated with poor sanitation, hygiene, and water.” Bartram and Cairncross write that, “While rarely discussed alongside the ‘big three’ attention-seekers of the international public health community – HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria – one disease alone kills more young children each year than all three combined. It is diarrhoea, and the key to its control is hygiene, sanitation, and water.”  Hunter et al state that, “diarrhoeal disease is the second most common contributor to the disease burden in developing countries (as measured by disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)), and poor-quality drinking water is an important risk factor for diarrhoea.”

Diarrhoeal disease in the developing world – the second most common contributor to disease in these countries, afflicting half of their population – has nothing to do with thought.  It’s related to the provision of toilets and clean running water.  We live in a society that prevents half of our potential illness because of internal plumbing.

Now with the emergence of COVID-19, we see just how vulnerable we are in the western world to infectious disease for which there is no cure or vaccine.  The only thing that is stemming the COVID tide are whole-population public health measures like social distancing and the most basic of all good public health measures, hygiene.

Indoor plumbing, hand washing and remaining one and a half metres from other people has nothing to do with our thought lives.  Dr Leaf’s ministry is built on a lie that basic science has long proven false for anyone willing to take notice.  COVID is simply shining the spotlight on the egregious error at the foundation of Dr Leaf’s ministry of falsehoods.

I hope that when the COVID crisis is over and the church has a chance to rebuild and move forward into the post-COVID world that they will snap out of their complacency and see the ministry of Dr Leaf for what it is – a regurgitation of a few basic facts mixed in with the rancid bile of factoids and falsehoods whose sole purpose is to market false-hope and fake cures to trusting, vulnerable people.

Until that time, when we’ve stayed the course and are on the other side of this COVID crisis, stay as safe and as well as you can.  I don’t need to tell you what to do by now – we’ve all heard it … keep your distance, wash your hands.  Follow the directions from public health officials in your local area.

If you’re in Australia – your local GP is there for you, for advice in person or on the phone.  Get your influenza vaccine.  More information is available from your local state health department or the Australian government.

We can get through this crisis if remain united, armed with the truth, not fake facts and false hope.

#KeepYourDistanceStandUnited

Bibliography

Mara, D., et al., Sanitation and health. PLoS Med, 2010. 7(11): e1000363 doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000363

Bartram, J. and Cairncross, S., Hygiene, sanitation, and water: forgotten foundations of health. PLoS Med, 2010. 7(11): e1000367 doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000367

Hunter, P.R., et al., Water supply and health. PLoS Med, 2010. 7(11): e1000361 doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000361

Post-script

Many of Dr Leaf’s acolytes will say that I’m being a hypocrite – that while I might be criticising Dr Leaf for using the COVID crisis to sell her products, I’m just using that as an excuse to gain some attention for myself.  Hey, think whatever you like.  I’m not particularly bothered.  I’m not here to sell my material or to promote myself.  Like always, I’m here to hold Dr Leaf accountable, since no one else in the church is willing to do so.  Like always, if you disagree with me, that’s fine.  I’m not here to win arguments.  I’m here to provide the truth.  Believe me or not, that’s entirely up to you.

Dr Caroline Leaf and Zombie Chemical Imbalance Myth

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Sometimes if you tell a story often enough, people forget that it’s just a story and it takes on a life of its own. It’s like a zombie … the story isn’t real but it continues to wander around eating people’s brains and it’s very hard to kill off.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. She also believes that reading a few blogs from fringe psychologists entitles her to call herself a mental health expert. She is the Christian church’s pin-up girl for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Dr Leaf recently posted a blog on “The Chemical Imbalance Myth”. It’s a zombie. She’s posted on this before (on the 26th of October 2015 to be precise) but her blog post in 2015 was so inaccurate that she later took it down, only for it to resurface later on her website (in the section dubiously titled “Scientific FAQ”).

And like every good zombie, it’s resurfaced again. Dr Leaf hasn’t changed any of the inaccuracies that forced her to take down the original post, but instead added a couple of extra bits in, mixed it up a little and then just served it up, like a reheated bowl of rancid Christmas scraps.

I won’t go through each and every point like I did with her previous iteration of this blog, although if you want to review my more in-depth analysis of this subject, then please feel free to read my previous blog post: https://cedwardpitt.com/2015/10/26/dr-caroline-leaf-and-the-myth-of-chemical-imbalances-myth/. But I thought it was worth highlighting a couple of key things from this year’s fetid reincarnation which are so flawed that not even a B-grade science fiction writer would seriously entertain them.

THE MIND AND THE BRAIN

Dr Leaf says:

“In other words, mental ill-health is a thought disorder based in the mind, which changes the brain physiologically and is a response to the complex and multifaceted challenges of life.” This is based on her underlying assumption that the brain doesn’t control the mind, but instead the mind controls the brain.

However, she also says that “Psychotropic drugs can directly affect our health, with side effects such as an increased risk of suicide, loss of sexual ability, potential brain shrinkage, agitation, insomnia, weight gain and obesity-related diseases like diabetes, lethargy, mental fog, emotional apathy, homicide”.

This statement is really ignorant and prejudiced; psychiatric drugs don’t make people into murderers for a start.

But the most striking flaw of all is that Dr Leaf is contradicting herself. She confidently asserts that psychotropic medications and their terrible chemical imbalances have ghastly side effects on emotional and cognitive functions such as “mental fog” and “emotional apathy”. But how can that be? After all, if the brain does not control the mind as she says, then the medications affecting the brain would not have any effect on the mind.

Dr Leaf can’t have it both ways – either her entire ministry is built on a false premise (the brain really controls the mind after all) or her dire assertions about psychiatric medications are unfounded (chemical imbalances in the brain can’t cause effects on the mind).

One way or the other, Dr Leaf has a serious problem in her reasoning.

Real science has clearly demonstrated that the mind is a product of the brain. Things that alter the structure of the brain (trauma, tumours) or the function of the brain (medications like ropinirole, every day drugs like caffeine, or illicit drugs like LSD) can all cause changes in how the mind functions with resulting changes in behaviour.

If Dr Leaf isn’t able to get the basics of science right and make even the most basic cogent argument then how can she be trusted to speak to more complicated issues surrounding mental health and illness.

DR LEAF’S RESEARCH

Dr Leaf has never been one to undersell her scientific work. Accordingly, in her blog post she says:

Following a similar research path, I have also demonstrated, using my research on the power of mind-action in changing the brain, that mental disorders are primarily based in the mind …

I have researched the effectiveness of mind action techniques (which are thought-based) in overcoming the negative effects of neurological issues such as TBI, dementias, movement disorders, autism, aphasia, and learning disabilities, emotional trauma as well as various cognitive, emotional and mental health issues …

My Geodesic Learning Theory has been shown not only to be effective in mental health care, but also treating physical damage to the brain that occurs in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), learning disabilities and to improve learning techniques in both schools and the corporate world …

my research and experience indicated that many of these conditions were influenced by, or originated in, a disorder of the mind that was either caused by a trauma or negative thinking patterns. In other words, mental ill-health is a thought disorder based in the mind, which changes the brain physiologically and is a response to the complex and multifaceted challenges of life.

And yet the reality is that Dr Leaf only did one PhD in South Africa, and has not done any other university based research since. Her PhD did not look at “the power of mind-action in changing the brain”. In fact, her research didn’t focus on mental health or illness at all, and it certainly didn’t focus on dementias, movement disorders, autism, aphasia, and learning disabilities, emotional trauma, cognitive, emotional or mental health issues.

Her PhD was the evaluation of her Geodesic Learning Theory on a group of very normal students in a South African School. None of them had dementia. None of the other conditions were mentioned either. The overall results were likely due to chance, and in some cases, her intervention made the students grades worsen. The only other research that Dr Leaf performed was a similar intervention in come schools in Dallas, but the results were much the same as her PhD and given the unflattering results, this study was never published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Dr Leaf should know what she studied for her own research, and yet her description in her current blog post is so strikingly different from what is on the public record. So again, this begs the question – how can someone who is so wrong about her own research be trusted with any level of authority in any other subject?

PREJUDICE AGAINST MENTAL ILLNESS

For someone who claims to be an expert on mental health, Dr Leaf is extremely callous and dismissive of those people who suffer from mental illnesses. She repeatedly uses quotation marks to refer to mental illnesses, like ‘“diseases” like depression’ as if to suggest that they aren’t illnesses at all. Can you imagine if this same level of disrespect was applied to someone with a physical disability? That people in wheelchairs have the “disability” of paraplegia, for example. It’s extremely disrespectful and intolerant whether it is speaking about a physical disability or a mental illness.

The other thing which is highly inappropriate is her scare-mongering about psychiatric treatments. Psychiatric patients are not imprisoned, drugged, locked in solitary confinement and compelled to “live their days marinating in their own excrement.” I doubt whether Dr Leaf has ever set foot in a psychiatric facility. She is simply regurgitating the information fed to her by alarmist groups such as Mad In America, a group of psychologically trained rogue extremists – the Taliban of the world of psychiatry. It’s propaganda in it’s purest form, but Dr Leaf takes it at face value and repeats it no matter how inaccurate it actually is.

Dr Leaf’s criticism of modern psychiatry is breathtaking in it’s ignorance, especially in the face of published science, but what makes it more concerning is that it is internally inconsistent her own teaching, and this isn’t the first time that she’s contradicted herself.

Dr Leaf should take down this ignorant, inaccurate and intolerant post. This particular zombie myth needs to be buried once and for all.

Fake science is no joke

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Happy Easter everyone.

I went to church this morning, and came home to get a lamb ragu going in the slow cooker, and thought I would just hop onto Facebook to see what was going on in the world. I was greeted with this:

“Your body literally treats negative thoughts like an infection.” Dr Peter Amuaquarshie

Oh dear … oh dear, oh dear, oh dear …

Easter is meant to be about redemption, about hope, about God’s great love for us. Clearly #TheDrLeafShow isn’t any of that.

Unfortunately, this is more pseudoscience from Dr Leaf and her cabal.  And while it might also be April Fools Day, fake science is no joke.

Dr Peter Amua-Quarshie has been in cahoots with Dr Leaf since the beginning of her teaching. He has supplied most of the illustrations for Dr Leaf’s ministry over the years, so I’m sure he’s profiting handsomely from Dr Leaf’s enormous sales and influence.

It’s so sad to see academics trade their integrity and sell their soul for the sake of the ill-gotten gains of popular pseudoscience.

Your body doesn’t “literally” treat negative thoughts like an infection. Our thoughts have literally no bearing on our immune function. In research work that has intentionally studied thought separately to stress, thought has not been associated with any significant changes in stress or health behaviour [1]. It’s also been confirmed that thought alone does not lead to detrimental biological changes, such as significant changes in immune function [2].

If anything, it’s the other way around – our immune system and our thoughts respond to physical changes in our bodies internal milieu. For example, an adrenaline surge causes us to feel fear and engage in fight or flight behaviours, and to respond quickly to injury, the balance of our immune system’s cells and cytokines changes to prepare for possible injury.

Another example, a physical infection from a microbe of some kind (bacterial or virus) causes a flood of chemical mediators called cytokines to float around the blood stream. This inflammatory response leads to an immune system that is better able to fight off infection, but it also changes our feelings and our thoughts – this flood of cytokines is the reason why we feel tired, achey and miserable when we’re sick.

Having “negative thoughts” is not the same as having an infection. Infections are disease states, whereas “negative thoughts” are normal and more often than not, beneficial. It’s normal to feel sad. It’s normal to feel angry. It’s normal to feel disgusted or embarrassed. These feelings are adaptive. Without them, we wouldn’t grow or change. Without them, we couldn’t have a rich, full life.

Dr Leaf claims that her goal is to “equip and empower you to use your mind to overcome labels and mental ill health (depression, anxiety, etc) to live a more fulfilled and successful life.” It’s a bit hard to do that by promoting fake science.

For his part, Amua-Quarshie should know better. He’s a teaching academic by trade and has a medical degree from the University of Ghana, after all. Unfortunately, it appears that Dr Amua-Quarshie has been exiled from mainstream academia, leaving a full-time position as an Adjunct Professor (lecturer) at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin and is now working as a lecturer in a school for chiropractors (Parker University, Dallas, Texas).

Though that’s more of an aside. The bottom line here is that Dr Leaf might claim that she wants people to overcome ‘labels and mental ill health’ but she isn’t going to do that by promoting such obvious mistruths that mislead people into fearing normal, adaptive human emotions. She isn’t promoting a more fulfilled and successful life, she’s promoting imbalance. She’s promoting false hope.

I know it’s April Fools, but believe me, this is no joke.  Fake science is misleading and harmful.  If Dr Leaf really wants people to live a more fulfilled and successful life, she should refrain from using it.

References
1. Doom, J.R. and Haeffel, G.J., Teasing apart the effects of cognition, stress, and depression on health. Am J Health Behav, 2013. 37(5): 610-9 doi: 10.5993/AJHB.37.5.4
2. Segerstrom, S.C. and Miller, G.E., Psychological stress and the human immune system: a meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry. Psychol Bull, 2004. 130(4): 601-30 doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.130.4.601

Stop mislabelling labels.

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The last time I looked through the supermarket, I bought some baked beans. How did I know the can I took off the shelf was full of baked beans and not freshly harvested sheep’s innards? Because the label on the can said so.

Labels aren’t perfect of course. Every now and then, a can of something has the wrong label applied in the factory. Usually it’s nothing too sinister – no accidental swaps of some goat entrails instead of your tinned salmon. Instead, it’s usually something similar – tuna gets labelled as salmon and vice versa, and the worst that happens is that the tuna mornay you’ve just made had an unexpected flavour.  Even these sorts of mild mix ups are rare. Overall, we trust that the labels are guides and the information they provide us helps us make an informed decision about what do to with that particular can and its contents.

It would be pretty silly for some random person to preach out the front of the supermarket, ranting about how all labels for a particular thing are all wrong.

“Uh, just because the occasional can of tuna was accidentally filled with cat food doesn’t mean to say that all labels are wrong. And just because one person had a bad experience with the wrong label, the supermarket shouldn’t stop using them … otherwise how else is anyone supposed to manage their cans effectively without labels? Honestly, stop looking like a fool by preaching about labels and let the rest of us finish our shopping.”

Dr Caroline Leaf, communication pathologist, self-titled cognitive neuroscientist, and a self-elected champion of irrelevant mental health advocacy, has come out all guns ablazin’ over ADHD labels again. She needs to give it a rest – she’s just like the crazy person standing in front of the supermarket.

“Labels for ADHD are bad”, she says. “Look at Avery Jackson, who was labeled ADHD but did not accept the label. He went on to earn multiple degrees and become one of the top neurosurgeons in the U.S!”  The underlying message – labelling a child with ADHD will lock then into a life of pathetic excuses and they won’t ever reach their full potential until they renounce the curse of their ADHD label.

For every scary anecdote about the evils of ADHD and the mental prison that everyone with such a label is supposed to find themselves in, there are ten more where the ADHD label helped them.  There are so many more people where the ADHD label helped them to finally understand their condition and receive the correct treatment, enabling them to reach their potential and improve their life in leaps and bounds.

Take, for example, one of my patients called Little Jimmy (not his real name). When Little Jimmy was in the early primary school grades, he was a bit of a fidgeter and couldn’t concentrate well enough at school or at home to complete his homework tasks. His mother took him to a naturopath who told him he had a disorder of “pyrolles disease”. Thankfully, mum brought him to see me, and after a careful history and a long chat, Little Jimmy went to see a specialist who diagnosed him with ADHD and commenced him on stimulant medications. Before his label, Little Jimmy’s reading levels were languishing at the bottom off his class after two years of stagnation.  He was more than a year behind in reading levels and going nowhere fast.  Two weeks after getting his label and the right medication, he went to the top three reading levels in the class.  His mother told me of the massive gains he made, and the flow-on effect this had to his self-esteem and confidence in other areas of his school work and school life. She cried as she recounted his story, and then I cried too.

So perhaps Avery Jackson became an orthopaedic surgeon because he chose to ignore his label of ADHD and worked hard anyway.  Good for him.  Little Jimmy got a label of ADHD and because of it, he learnt to read. Now he’s got the chance to follow in Avery Jackson’s footsteps, BECAUSE of his label.

Labels are important. Without them, we wouldn’t know how to know who needs which treatment. Labels can help people overcome some of the strongest barriers and connect with others for support.

And let’s face it, if someone really wanted to, they don’t need a label of ADHD to find excuses in life.

So labels are not a hinderance, but rather, they are a guide to help you know what’s going on so informed choices can be made. In Dr Leaf’s mind, those kids with ADHD are just naughty children, with bad parents, who are using the label of ADHD to cover their poor parenting and their bad behaviour. Clearly all they need to do is to stop their toxic thinking and they wouldn’t need their medications, but they would be cured.

Dr Leaf is wrong … she can stand and scream blue murder about labels and ADHD all she wants.  But just like the crazy random person screaming about labels in front of the supermarket, it means very little. It’s not helping her cause, and if anything, it’s sewing distrust in an system that, despite it’s flaws, works very well, and has helped thousands of children and adults alike to achieve their potential.

That’s the power of labels, and Dr Leaf would do herself and all her followers a favour if she stopped mislabelling them.

Guns cause mass shootings, not psychiatric drugs

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Las Vegas, Nevada – the latest of many places in America joined by the shared ignominy of senseless mass violence.

Each victim (and there are so many [1]) deserve respect – their lives, their stories, their memory, honoured. Their families should be allowed to mourn, their community given space to heal.

Their loss should not be used as an ideological segue to opportunistically push an unrelated viewpoint. To do so would be obnoxious, like someone attending a wake so they could try and sell life insurance to those who are grieving.

And yet, Dr Caroline Leaf has done just that, using the deaths of nearly five-dozen people as an opportunity to push the idea that psychiatric medications are somehow to blame for the actions of those who perpetrate mass murder (http://drleaf.com/blog/mental-health-news-october-2017/).

“One factor that is rarely discussed in both the mainstream media and among politicians is psychiatric drug-induced violence. It is too easy to label the perpetrator as an evil maniac with mental health problems without looking at the correlation between psychotropic drugs and violence.”

In my opinion, I think it’s abhorrent that Dr Leaf would be so callous as to use such an abject tragedy to push her ideological barrow, but sadder still that she is simply wrong.

The key factor in gun-related deaths isn’t psychiatric medications, but guns.

From 1996 to 2011, the use of any psychotropic medication in Australia roughly doubled (from about 55 to 130 ‘defined daily doses per 1000 population per day’ [2: p234, 3]). In the same period, Australia’s number of mass shootings fell to zero. Australia’s gun-related homicide and suicide rate also fell [4].

Why? Because after the tragedy of Port Arthur in 1996, the Australian government introduced gun law reform, drastically reducing the number of guns available within the general population. Admittedly, experts argue whether the gun law reform was a decisive factor or just one of many in the reduction of gun-related deaths in Australia [4].

But irrespective, the statistics decimate Dr Leaf’s irrational hypothesis on psychiatric medications. There is no link to psychiatric medications and mass murder. Indeed, those who suffer from mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence, not the cause of it [5, 6].

Dr Leaf attempts to soften the blow at the end of her newsletter. “That is not to say everyone who takes these medications will become violent – we should not fear or isolate people that are suffering from mental health disorders”. But her repeated claim that these egregious acts of violence are caused by psychiatric medications makes her words ring hollow.

In publishing her latest blog, Dr Leaf’s motives may have been benevolent, but her actions have left much to be desired. She has dishonoured the victims of Vegas. She has targeted the wrong cause. Her actions have created many more victims of what is already a senseless tragedy.

References

[1] Berkowitz B, Gamio L, Lu D, Uhrmacher K, Lindeman T. The math of mass shootings. 2015 [cited 2017 October 12]; Available from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/
[2] Australian Statistics on Medicines 1997. In: Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, editor. Canberra: Commwealth of Australia, 1998.
[3] Stephenson CP, Karanges E, McGregor IS. Trends in the utilisation of psychotropic medications in Australia from 2000 to 2011. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 2013 Jan;47(1):74-87.
[4] Fact check: Have firearm homicides and suicides dropped since Port Arthur as a result of John Howard’s reforms? RMIT ABC Fact Check 2016 [cited 2017 October 12]; Available from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck/2016-04-28/fact-check-gun-homicides-and-suicides-john-howard-port-arthur/7254880
[5] Mental Health Myths and Facts. 2017 [cited 2017 October 12]; Available from: https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/myths-facts/index.html
[6] Metzl JM, MacLeish KT. Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms. Am J Public Health 2015 Feb;105(2):240-9.

Post script: A picture says a thousand words:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/world/heres-why-australia-will-never-understand-the-us-obsession-with-guns-20171003-gyt7ys.html

If you have been distressed by the Las Vegas shooting or you have concerns about your mental health, please talk to your general practitioner or psychologist.

If you need urgent assistance, please talk to someone straight away:
In Australia:
Lifeline ~ 13 11 14
BeyondBlue ~ 1300 22 4636 or https://www.beyondblue.org.au/about-us/contact-us
Suicide Callback Service ~ 1300 659 467 or https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au

USA:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline ~ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

New Zealand:
Lifeline Aotearoa 24/7 Helpline ~ 0800 543 354

UK:
Samaritans ~ 116 123

For other countries: Your Life Counts maintains a list of crisis services across a number of countries: http://www.yourlifecounts.org/need-help/crisis-lines.

Anti-psychotics, damn lies and statistics

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Today, I was asked to clarify some information surrounding an earlier post about Carrie Fisher and the role that anti-psychotic medications may or may not have played in her death from a heart attack.  I appreciated the question which was about whether I’d seen the statistics put up by the Mad In America (MIA) blogger who wrote about Carrie Fisher (the blog which, incidentally, Dr Leaf had then uncritically decided to slyly try to regift it in the form of her newsletter article).

In the opening of her post, the MIA blogger said, “There’s an important question here. Is she one of the cases in point to explain why our community has a 25 year lower life expectancy?” and then threw in a table plucked out of context from a journal article.  At least, unlike Dr Leaf, the MIA blogger was intellectually honest enough to attach the source of the table, which was an article published in the European Heart Journal in 2012.

While the MIA blogger is certainly entitled to her opinion, I thought it was worth discussing the statistics in a bit more detail, if for nothing else than to give some context to the whole “anti-psychotics kill you” trope that keeps getting around.

First, there needs to be the proper context.  No one is denying that there’s a higher mortality rate amongst people with schizophrenia and other forms of psychosis, though I don’t see exactly where she got her “25 year lower life expectancy” line from. To me, that seems excessive.

Then to the study itself.  The paper that the table is extracted from is Honkola et al [1]. The study specifically examines the association between the use of different classes of psychiatric medications with the rate of sudden cardiac death during a coronary event (a heart attack, or angina).

In her post, the MIA blogger throws around a lot of numbers but she was loathe to put her numbers in the right context.  For example, she claimed that “smoking is four times safer than the older types of antipsychotics. And it’s twice as safe to smoke as it is to take any antipsychotic, including the newer ones”.  Except, her comparison is a fallacy of conflation – she’s comparing the all cause mortality of smoking (which is more like three-fold rather than two-fold, just FYI [2]) with the highly specific ‘sudden cardiac death during a heart attack’ mortality of the study she’s referencing.  It’s apples and oranges – the groups aren’t directly comparable.

Besides, even if her numbers were directly applicable, the positively immoral sounding four-fold increase in the rate of death sounds is just an association, not a cause.  There is a dictum in science, “Correlation is not the same as causation.”  Just because two things occur together does not mean that one causes the other.  There may be other explanations beside the medication that might explain that number, including but not limited to, statistical anomalies and lifestyle factors, and other factors not considered in the analysis.

There are other problems with relevance too.  Most of the numbers in the table were small and not statistically significant (that is, could have been related to chance alone).  The only strong numbers were for old anti-psychotics, phenothiazines, tricyclic antidepressants and butyrophenones, none of which are first line medications for psychosis or depression anymore.  Newer anti-depressants and the newer atypical anti-psychotics did not have a statistically significant association.

And, like I said before, this study is looking at the association between sudden cardiac death in people having a heart attack, which is a very specific form of mortality.  It’s not particularly applicable to everyone on the medications, so even if the 4- or 8-fold increase is rock solid, you can’t translate that statistic to everyone on anti-psychotic medications or anti-depressants, or Carrie Fisher for that matter since no one really knows how she died other than she had a heart attack.  The rest is just disrespectful speculation.

For me, rather than trying to take a table full of weak and inapplicable statistics and beat a conclusion out of them, a more useful thing would be to know the benefit or harm of anti-psychotics on all causes of death.  If anti-psychotics were really as poisonous as Dr Leaf and the MIA blogger portrayed, then all-cause mortality would be much higher in those exposed to the drugs versus those who were never exposed to the drug, which is why this study by Torniainen and colleagues [3] is particularly interesting, and in particular, this graph – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4393693/figure/F1/

In this study, the chance of dying from any cause was significantly higher in those people with schizophrenia who were never treated with anti-psychotics compared to those who were treated.

Does this answer the question why there is a lower rate of mortality? Not really, because in fairness, this study also showed just an association between no anti-psychotics and a higher death rate.  It doesn’t specifically prove causation one way or another.

Does it show that we should throw anti-psychotics around like lollies, or that they are wonder drugs without any associated harm? No, they are medicines and need to be used responsibly.

It does show there’s a general benefit to anti-psychotics for people with schizophrenia so they’re not the toxic killers Dr Leaf and the MIA blogger try and make them out to be.

Anyone can cherry-pick weak statistics and bend them to suit their self-interested propaganda.  The remedy to damn lies and statistics is to look more broadly and consider the strength of the numbers and their context.  When we do that with the studies on anti-psychotic medications we see that they aren’t the evil killers that some people would like to make them out to be.

References
[1]        Honkola J, Hookana E, Malinen S, et al. Psychotropic medications and the risk of sudden cardiac death during an acute coronary event. Eur Heart J 2012 Mar;33(6):745-51
[2]        Jha P, Ramasundarahettige C, Landsman V, et al. 21st-century hazards of smoking and benefits of cessation in the United States. The New England journal of medicine 2013 Jan 24;368(4):341-50
[3]        Torniainen M, Mittendorfer-Rutz E, Tanskanen A, et al. Antipsychotic treatment and mortality in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia bulletin 2015 May;41(3):656-63

Dr Caroline Leaf and the power of prayer

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If you’re a Christian, then you believe in the power of prayer.  It’s pretty fundamental … prayer is fundamental to our relationship with God and our daily life with him, and even salvation itself.

So where does the power of prayer come from?  Does it come from the words we speak like some ritual incantation? Does it come from the power of our minds?  Or does the power of prayer rest solely in God and his power when he answers our prayers?

One gets the impression from reading Dr Leaf’s e-mail newsletter today that the power of prayer is less about God and more about the power of the human mind.

Dr Leaf starts by saying that “12 minutes of daily focused prayer over an 8 week period can change the brain to such an extent that it can be measured on a brain scan. This type of prayer seems to increase activity in brain areas associated with social interaction compassion and sensitivity to others. It also increases frontal lobe activity as focus and intentionality increase.”

That may well be true, but the effect isn’t related to prayer itself, it’s simply what happens when the brain does things over and over.  This same effect occurs in people who perform Buddhist meditation [1], or jugglers learning to juggle [2], or London taxi drivers memorising the streets of London by rote [3].  Indeed, the brain has been shown to change simply with hormonal fluctuations that occur throughout the menstrual cycle [4].  Prayer might change the brain, but so do a lot of other things that have nothing to do with prayer.

Not that these pesky facts stop Dr Leaf from going on to state that, “As well as changing the brain, another study implies that intentional prayer can even change physical matter. Researchers found that intentional thought for 30 seconds affected laser light.”  To start with, this study [5] that Dr Leaf refers to was nothing to do with Christian prayer, and all to do with Buddhist-type meditation … to use this ‘experiment’ as support for prayer is misleading.  It’s also misleading because the results were essentially the interpretation of the experimenter.  The same experimental design performed by independent laboratories showed no effect of thought on laser light [6] (see also “Dr Caroline Leaf – Where Angels Fear To Tread“).

So intentional thought doesn’t change physical matter, and why should that be any surprise?  Prayer might change things, but the effect of prayer has nothing to do with us.  We don’t change physical matter, only God does, since He created matter in the first place.

Dr Leaf is simply setting up a false premise so she can solve it – ‘You cause brain damage by your toxic thinking, but you can heal your brain damage by your non-toxic thinking’.  But toxic thoughts do not cause brain damage, so there is no brain damage from toxic thinking for prayer to reverse.  The pathetic excuse for ’science’ that Dr Leaf relies on to support her ministry doesn’t show any effect for the power of prayer.  As Christians, the power of prayer is a matter of faith and reliance on the power of God, not our own strength.

References
[1]        Desbordes G, Negi LT, Pace TW, Wallace BA, Raison CL, Schwartz EL. Effects of mindful-attention and compassion meditation training on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in an ordinary, non-meditative state. Frontiers in human neuroscience 2012;6:292
[2]        Scholz J, Klein MC, Behrens TE, Johansen-Berg H. Training induces changes in white-matter architecture. Nature neuroscience 2009 Nov;12(11):1370-1.
[3]        Maguire EA, Woollett K, Spiers HJ. London taxi drivers and bus drivers: a structural MRI and neuropsychological analysis. Hippocampus 2006;16(12):1091-101.
[4]        Hagemann G, Ugur T, Schleussner E, et al. Changes in brain size during the menstrual cycle. PloS one 2011 Feb 04;6(2):e14655.
[5]        Radin D. Testing nonlocal observation as a source of intuitive knowledge. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing 2008;4(1):25-35.
[6]        Alcock JE, Burns J, Freeman A. Psi wars: Getting to grips with the paranormal: Imprint Academic Charlottesville, VA, 2003.

Dr Caroline Leaf – 2 Corinthians 10:5 doesn’t support brain detoxing

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According to Dr Caroline Leaf, communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist-come-theologian, 2 Corinthians 10:5 says that “We take every thought prisoner and make it obey the Messiah.”

Sure, part of it does, but does the scripture 2 Corinthians 10:5 lend any credibility to Dr Leaf’s idea that thoughts are toxic and we need to take them captive to detox from them?

She may want it to – her 21 Day Brain Detox is so scientifically anaemic that I can understand her desperation to bolster its credibility any way she can.  Unfortunately for Dr Leaf, misinterpreted scripture isn’t the elixir her teaching needs.

2 Corinthians 10:5 is Pauls famous scripture in which is pens the words “thought” and “captive”, a concept which seems to support Dr Leaf’s ideas.  Except that Paul isn’t speaking generally to us, the body of Christ, but specifically about the Corinthian church. Look at the verse in context:

“By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you – I, Paul, who am ‘timid’ when face to face with you, but ‘bold’ towards you when away! I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be towards some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.  You are judging by appearances. If anyone is confident that they belong to Christ, they should consider again that we belong to Christ just as much as they do. So even if I boast somewhat freely about the authority the Lord gave us for building you up rather than tearing you down, I will not be ashamed of it. I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you with my letters. For some say, ‘His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.’ Such people should realise that what we are in our letters when we are absent, we will be in our actions when we are present.” (NIV UK, 2 Corinthians 10:1-11)

This chapter is a specific rebuke to some of the Christians within the church at Corinth, and also a defence against some of the murmurings and accusations that some in that church were levelling at Paul. For example, in verse 2, “I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be towards some people who think that we live by the standards of this world.”

Verses 3-6 are a specific and authoritative rebuttal against the accusations levelled at Paul, paraphrased as, “You may speak against us and the church, but we have weapons that smash strongholds, and we’re coming to take down those pretensions of yours and take every thought of yours captive to make it obedient to Christ, and punish every act of disobedience …”

The specific nature of the verse is also supported by some Bible commentary:

“But how does St. Paul meet the charge of being carnally minded in his high office? “Though we walk in the flesh [live a corporeal life], we do not war after the flesh,” or “according to the flesh,” the contrast being in the words “in” and “according.” And forthwith he proceeds to show the difference between walking in the flesh and warring according to the flesh. A warrior he is, an open and avowed warrior – a warrior who was to cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; a warrior too who would punish these Judaizers if they continued their disorganizing work; but a prudent and considerate warrior, deferring the avenging blow till “I am assured of your submission” (Stanley) “that I may not confound the innocent with the guilty, the dupes with the deceivers.” What kind of a preacher he was he had shown long before; what kind of an apostle he was among apostles as to independence, self-support, and resignation of official rights in earthly matters, he had also shown; further yet, what kind of a sufferer and martyr he was had been portrayed.”
(C. Lipscomb – http://biblehub.com/commentaries/homiletics/2_corinthians/10.htm)

Similarly, the translation from the original text is more specific than general. The verb used for “bringing into captivity” is aichmalōtízō, “to make captive: – lead away captive, bring into captivity” which is in the Present Active Participle form of the verb. The present tense represents a simple statement of fact or reality viewed as occurring in actual time. The active voice represents the subject as the doer or performer of the action. The Greek participle corresponds for the most part to the English participle, reflecting “-ing” or “-ed” being suffixed to the basic verb form. Actions completed but ongoing or commands are different verb tenses (see https://www.blueletterbible.org/help/greekverbs.cfm for a better explanation). Paul wasn’t making a general statement, but a specific statement about what he would do in his present time, not the future.

So, Paul isn’t telling us to “bring every thought captive into obedience to Christ”.  Paul is issuing a smack-down to his critics, not telling us to fight our thoughts.

Dr Leaf is guilty of perpetuating a common scriptural misunderstanding in order to try and validate her already weak teaching.

Our thoughts are not toxic.  We do not need to detox our brain.  Misquoted phrases of scripture taken out of context doesn’t change that.

On sperm and common sense

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I’ve been thinking the last few days about critical thinking, or more specifically, the lack of it.

I’ve written about critical thinking before.  I realise that critical thinking can be difficult, and it doesn’t always come naturally to us humans.  And in discussing it here, I don’t want to give the false impression that I expect everyone to suddenly become Aristotle or Francis Bacon, but I’d like to think we can all have enough critical thinking skills to have some basic common sense.

A case in point came across my Facebook feed tonight.  A Facebook friend had laryngitis and was about to embark on a speaking engagement and was asking the hive mind for some advice.

Now I know that this was a question posed to lay people, and I wasn’t expecting anyone to be giving specific medical advice … but it was interesting that the answers, by and large, didn’t even pass the common sense test.  Most of the answers recommended either gargling or drinking various home-made potions.  Except, when you gargle something or drink something, it doesn’t go anywhere near the voice box – we know that because we know what happens when you get liquid into your voice box, you cough or choke.  So clearly, no matter what you’re gargling or drinking, it isn’t going to affect your vocal cords one bit.  You don’t need a medical degree to know that, you just have to use a little bit of common sense.

The same deficiency in entry-level critical thinking is seen in the church all the time.  It afflicts everyone from pew-warmer to pastor.  Common sense so often escapes us when it comes to understanding scripture.  Christian celebrities skew the text of the Bible to suit their own agendas all the time, and most Christians are too gullible and just accept the incorrect interpretation.  Sometimes a scriptural misinterpretation can be passed down from generation to generation because people don’t question the orthodoxy for fear of appearing divisive or ignorant.

A funny example of how the scripture can be taught with all sincerity but without much understanding is in relation to sperm.  When I was in my final year of high school at a prominent Christian school, one of the male teachers took it on himself to get all the boys together from our year level for a chat about important man things.

One of the things that was mentioned was that we shouldn’t masturbate, because of the story of Onan.  In Genesis 38, Onan ejaculated on the ground rather than in his sister-in-law and God smote him.  Somehow, that was taken to mean that semen is precious, therefore it shouldn’t be wasted.  This lead to a historical view, expressed by Clement of Alexandria who wrote, “Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted. To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature.”  This lead to the concept that masturbation is evil because it is seminal genocide, which eventually lead to the Monty Python parody “Every sperm is sacred” (https://youtu.be/fUspLVStPbk?list=RDfUspLVStPbk).

Anyway, back to my high school – the teacher wasted our entire morning tea time talking about Onan, and about how we should be chaste and not masturbate because every sperm is sacred.  But he clearly didn’t read the actual scripture, nor did he or anyone else ever consider why, if God was so stressed about wasting semen, He would create men to have wet dreams.  I really wanted to make this point, but didn’t because it was morning tea time and everyone wanted to get out of there, and I also didn’t want to be mercilessly harassed about being pro-masturbation by every guy in my grade.

My high school teacher and the story of Onan is an example of how people can be well meaning and still misguided, and why we need to apply common sense to scripture.  It doesn’t take a great deal of biological knowledge to know that men have nocturnal emissions of semen, yet for centuries, the story of Onan was about how he was smitten because of his treatment of his sperm, not about how he was disobedient.

Another example of how well-meaning but misguided teaching can be perpetuated comes from the Christian course, “Valiant Man” by Australian pastor, Dr Allen Meyer.  The “Valiant Man” program was a ten-week series of small group sessions designed with the intention of helping men develop their Christian character in the area of sex.  In week three, Dr Meyer (not a medical doctor) tried to show that men should respect women more because we all started off in the womb as females, and the Y-chromosome eventually turned us from a girl into a boy.

This little factoid wasn’t the only significant defect in the Valiant Man program, but it was one of the most memorable.   “We all start off female” was one of the things that the other participants in the program all remembered, and it even made it to Sunday morning church as part of a testimonial one of the men gave about the program.  And yet, it was one of the most clearly inaccurate parts of the program – all embryos have the structures to be either male or female.  We didn’t all start off as women.  Men aren’t an aberration of the female default setting*.

In week one of the program, all participants were required to agree to some ground-rules in order to keep going on the program.  Point 2 of this ‘contract’ said, “intellectual opinions play no part in our discussion, except where they are relevant to our growth.”  In other words, don’t challenge the material gentlemen, and don’t think for yourselves.  While this might be conducive to running a smooth program, it meant that gross errors and distortions were left unchallenged.

This pattern of unquestioning acceptance of misguided teaching continues throughout the church.  This is something that Dr Leaf does all the time.  It doesn’t take theological training to see that her use of scripture is inaccurate (like her interpretation of Proverbs 23:7, for example), but the vast majority of Christians simply accept her misguided interpretation and theologically trained church leaders also accept it, or don’t correct it (both of which are just as heinous).

I know that critical thinking is sometimes tricky, but I’m not advocating for anything more than common sense.  Entry level critical thinking doesn’t take much effort but it can be particularly life changing.  Like with “Valiant Man”, a little bit of critical thinking can stop bad teaching from being accepted as truth.  Like the story of Onan, a little bit of critical thinking can stop centuries of incorrect teaching being perpetuated.  Like with my friends Facebook status, a little bit of critical thinking can help a person make the best choice for their own personal health.

As Christians, we need to have some self-respect and stop being so gullible, just accepting something as the truth because some Christian celebrity says it from the pulpit.

Ultimately it’s the truth that sets us free, not some gilded assumption.

* In fairness, I did the program in 2010 and it may have been updated since then … here’s hoping.

Dr Caroline Leaf and Testimonials – Good marketing, poor evidence

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Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. She is a pseudoscientist of the highest order. She once wrote a PhD. Now she has episodes of her TV show titled “Surviving cancer by using the Mind”.

This weeks edition of her newsletter started off with some subtle boasting:

“We have received many E-mails over the past years asking for Testimonies with regards to Dr Leaf’s research and teachings. We have summarized eight pages of testimonies received at TESTIMONIES. Be encouraged and feel free to refer them to friends, family, acquaintances, and work colleagues struggling with Mind issues.”

Testimonials are an empty box wrapped in shiny paper and trimmed with a bow. They look really good but offer nothing of substance. They’re simply an old advertising trick.

According to the Market Science Institute, “Testimonial solicitations – in which firms solicit consumers’ personal endorsements of a product or service – represent a popular marketing practice. Testimonials are thought to offer several benefits to firms, among them that participating consumers may strengthen their positive attitudes toward a brand, through the act of writing testimonials.” [1]

Who can argue with a person who says that Dr Leaf helped turn their life around? Saying anything negative just makes you sound like a cynical old boot.

And that’s the real problem, because while publishing a whole bunch of positive stories is good for marketing, it makes it very hard for those who had a genuinely bad experience to say anything. No one wants to listen to those people whom Dr Leaf has confused or mislead – it makes for terrible PR. Those people feel devalued, and sometimes worse, because it seems like everyone else had a good result from Dr Leaf’s teaching, except them.

Testimonials also make for very poor scientific evidence. Indeed, testimonials are considered the lowest form of scientific evidence [2]. It’s all very well and good for a bunch of people to share their positive experiences, but as life changing as the experience may have been, they are not evidence of the effectiveness of Dr Leaf’s teaching. Without specific, well-designed research, no one can say if the testimonials Dr Leaf is publishing are the norm. Recent research demonstrates that self-help literature for depression may not have any benefit over a placebo treatment [3]. So it may be that any improvement attributed to Dr Leaf’s teaching was actually the placebo effect. Dr Leaf can list testimonials until she’s blue in the face, but that doesn’t prove that her work is scientific or therapeutic.

Indeed, selectively publishing testimonials is duplicitous, telling half-truths, positively spinning her own story. How many e-mails has Dr Leaf gotten from people who have found her teaching inaccurate, ineffective, unbiblical or harmful? Dr Leaf’s social media minions deliberately delete any negative comments and block anyone from her sites that disagree with her. And over the years, many people have shared with me how arrogant and dismissive her team has been to polite, genuine concern or criticism. I can personally attest to the same treatment. If Dr Leaf was honest with her followers, she would be openly publishing the brickbats as well as the bouquets.

For her readers and followers, the testimonials need to be seen for what they are: just individual stories. Sure, we should rejoice with those who are rejoicing (Romans 12:15), and so good for those who feel Dr Leaf has helped them. But they do not constitute evidence for the therapeutic efficacy or scientific integrity of the work of Dr Leaf.

For people genuinely struggling with “mind issues”, the last thing they need is testimonials collated by Dr Leaf’s marketing team.  They don’t need to be referred to Dr Leaf’s work, they need to be referred to psychologists and doctors.

And if Dr Leaf really wanted to prove her legitimacy, she would rely on independent peer-reviewed published research, not on the list of vacuous, self-serving cherry-picked testimonials that she is currently offering.

References

[1] Marketing Science Institute. Consumer Testimonials as Self-Generated Advertisements: Evaluative Reconstruction Following Product Usage. [cited 2014, Aug 3]; Available from: http://www.msi.org/reports/consumer-testimonials-as-self-generated-advertisements-evaluative-reconstru/.
[2] Fowler, G., Evidence-based practice: Tools and techniques. Systems, settings, people: Workforce development challenges for the alcohol and other drugs field, 2001: 93-107
[3] Moldovan, R., et al., Cognitive bibliotherapy for mild depressive symptomatology: randomized clinical trial of efficacy and mechanisms of change. Clinical psychology & psychotherapy, 2013. 20(6): 482-93