Psychological distress : an apology

This post is to apologise for my previous post on psychological distress in which I believe I put a misleading slant on what I was writing about.

This is a link to the study I was referring to.

hqlo.biomedcentral.com/arti...

The way I wrote about it suggested that the main finding was that more psychological distress was present in people being treated than people who weren't being treated.

However, the main conclusion of the study is twofold.

1) people with RLS suffer psychological distress.

3) psychological remedies should be included in RLS treatment.

NOTE : the study does recognise RLS as a physical condition which requires physical treatment.

Psychological treatment is adjunctive therapy not intended to replace physical treatment.

Whereas it may be true that more research is needed into the biomedical treatment of RLS, until a perfect treatment or cure is discovered, people will still be suffering psychological distress.

Read on to find out more about the exact nature of this distress and possible remedies.

This study, like numerous others found that anxiety and depression are strongly associated with RLS.

However, it found more!

One interesting finding was that RLS severity is associated with people experiencing more bodily symptoms, e.g. pain In the absence of any physical cause. This is called "somatisation".

You can see why some might say then that RLS is all in the mind despite the fact that it isn't.

The study also discovered increased compulsivity, phobic anxiety, hostility and paranoid ideation in people with RLS.

These can all lead to poor outcomes in the treatment of RLS.

This study, along with other studies, does suggest some psychological remedies for people with RLS which includes psychological support, education in coping strategies and cognitive interventions.

[KassandraTroy]

Lack of sleep (because of RLS) can leed to all sorts of psychosomatic symptoms and psychological symptoms like paranoia, phobias, OCD, etc. That's why sleep deprivation is used as a torture tool.

ME/CFS sufferers have been battling this 'it's all in the mind' stigma for decades too. Most ME/CFS patient lack sleep severely too. And yes, depression and anxiety is higher in ME/CFS sufferers too but that's understandable with all the upheaval and restrictions the illness is causing.

[Hidden in reply to KassandraTroy]

Hi, yes it's interesting about the "all in the mind" issue and it becoming a stigma.

The problem is that perhaps some people have used the phrase to mean that there is no actual problem or issue i.e. no problem exists, you are either "making it up" or "imagining" it.

Not good, because the first appears to be a moral judgment an the second appears to be suggesting you are lacking something or are a lesser person, a personal judgment.

In reality there may be lots of problems that are all in the mind, but that doesn't mean that there is NO problem and therefore no need to offer appropriate help. It may mean that the problem is psychological rather than physical, therefore the help offered should be appropriate to it being psychological.

The worst scenario is, of course, where somebody with a physical condition is told it's all in the mind, when it isn't.