Thread by @exceedhergrasp1

Apropos of nothing, here are a few things that people with #longCOVID should know about the pseudoscientific Lightning Process. TL;DR? Grifters gonna grift. Want more? Read on. (1/12)

The Lightning Process is a mish-mash of "neurolinguistic programming", marketing tactics, and grift. According to Brian Hughes, "it exists b/c commercially-minded providers of pseudoscientific treatments have successfully identified a market for it."(2/12) thesciencebit.net/2019/09/11/my-…

Parker, inventor of the process, taught courses that identified him as a "clairvoyant spiritualist" before he focused his grift on sick people, claiming he could “help you to completely recover permanently" from ME with “no possibility of relapse”. (3/12) buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/ins…

Parker was sued to change the claims, but the Wayback Machine, which archives old versions of websites, keeps the score. As a side note, their archival work is incredibly important, keeping people from changing history, & you can support them here: (4/12) archive.org/donate/

Now, the personal knowledge.
First, a participant in a trial gave me one of the how-tos for Lightning-Process-style CBT. It was chilling. (5/12)

First, your language is to shift to a self-blaming structure. If you think "I have ME", you should shift that to "I am doing ME". (There is no such thing as outwardly-imposed limitations. You yourself have chosen to have such limits & can let them go.) (6/12)

"They would never do this in another disease" - oh yes they would: Parker made claims that the Lightning Process could cure basically anything. I don't know if he's a True Believer, but that is what he sells to others: total control over one's reality. "There is no spoon." (7/12)

Second, when you experience a symptom, you shout "STOP!" at top of your lungs, and turn in a circle.
Yes, really.
This lets your body know you are Very Fed Up with your symptoms and simply will not tolerate them anymore. (8/12)

The Lightning Process has been called a cult, hypnosis, etc. I believe it works to the same degree that I believe people can be hypnotized to believe all kinds of things. The saddest story I know out of this process is a woman who believed it had cured her. (9/12)

I clicked on her Facebook -- like you do -- and found the same story repeated ad infinitum: she was "catching cold" over and over again. "I just catch the flu whenever I overdo it," she lamented. "It's a good thing I don't have ME anymore!" (10/12)

By reframing post-exertional malaise as catching the flu after exercise, she was still convinced she was no longer "doing ME". Maybe that made her happier; I'm not the one to decide that. But brainwashed was an accurate description. (11/12)

People have tried to legitimize this drek by doing studies on it. OF COURSE in the UK where apparently psychologists believe in fairies, but disappointingly, in Norway, too. Don't fall for scams, kids. (12/12) virology.ws/2020/08/27/tri…