Quackery, Pseudoscience, and You.


Filed Under Various | Dec 8, MST 11:59 am

Quack Attack
Ben Goldacre is in the business of challenging quackery. In one recent post of his, he takes on the braingym movement. It’s a wonderful read, and I invite all of you to saunter on on over and digest what he has to say.

Mister Misery is a mental health website with a particular focus on depression, anxiety, and stress. We often cover conditions that tie into the preceding big three mental states — things like diabetes, heart disorders, anorexia, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and the likes. Though this site isn’t necessarily focused on debunking quackery, it’s important to cover the topic now and then.

A Gullible Species

Human beings are, as a rule, a gullible species. We gloss over scientific studies while placing a premium on testimonials, we place faith in products and therapies that have little proof to back them up, and we often believe nonsense despite a mountain of overwhelming evidence disproving our pet theories and causes.

We aim to provide a balanced view on this website. We offer no guarantees about anything covered on Mister Misery, and in some cases we’re fairly skeptical about some of the therapies, studies, and theories that we present to our readers. We write under the assumption that our readers take everything they read with a grain of salt, and that they always explore multiple arguments before deciding on whether they agree with whatever it is they’ve read on this site.

Controversial Treatments

People who are depressed are often in a tight spot, which leaves them open to predatory practices of quacks and charlatans. It’s important for them to be very careful with the treatments they take on. For example, personally, I’ve had excellent success with certain NLP exercises, but I’m very aware that those exercises have never been the subject of rigorous scientific study. As a whole, NLP has fared poorly under scientific scrutiny. Frankly, there’s a strong argument to be made against the quality and scope of the studies that have been done, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that there is still, as of yet, limited scientific evidence in favor of NLP as a form of therapy.

I think there’s very little harm in people trying certain NLP exercises on their own — in my case, it helped. However, I would strongly caution people against spending thousands of dollars on weekend NLP seminars. If, against their better judgment, they decided to take those seminars, I’d ask them to be very careful not to sign up with a snake-oil instructor. Some NLP teachers are trained psychologists with University backgrounds, but others are simply quacks preying on the weak for a quick buck.

I use NLP as an example of a controversial therapeutic treatment that we’ve covered on this blog. It’s a field that is full of quackery, though I do believe that buried under the bullshit, there’s some solid things it has to offer the world. However, there’s still plenty of bullshit to dig through before we find any gold. That requires a discerning mind that approaches new information from a variety of angles.

Practice Cautious Skepticism

We expect our readers to practice a certain cautious skepticism, even when they assume it’s unnecessary. We’d rather that they be safe then sorry. Reading a site like Goldacre’s is a step in the right direction.

A healthy skepticism is an excellent antidote to the gullible tendencies that are part and parcel of human nature. The more reluctant you are to buy into what you read, the more insistent you are on exhaustively researching the pros and cons of the therapeutic treatments you are considering, the less likely you are to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous snake oil peddlers.

Searching your way to better health: How I got rid of panic attacks.


Filed Under Overcome Depression, Personal Stories | Sep 2, MDT 12:37 pm

Years ago, I underwent a period of frequent and intense panic attacks. At the time, I had no idea what was happening to me. Eventually, after one particularly bad episode, I took a trip to the E.R room of a local hospital. It was late at night, and the doctor who saw me admitted that he wasn’t really equipped to deal with mental health issues. He tried to give me a diagnosis, but what he came up with was less than satisfying. He thought I might have been having a schizophrenic episode, and I knew that I most definitely wasn’t.

He asked me to wait until they could call in a psychiatrist. After several hours of dicking around the gloomy interiors of this rather decrepit hospital, a psychiatrist finally showed up — and she was absolutely, utterly, and completely terrible. She made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want to be there, and after a few cursory questions she immediately asked me if I wanted any drugs. I told her no thank you, and then she basically kicked me out of her squalid little office.

Dr. Google Provides A Diagnosis

I decided that since these doctors didn’t know what the hell they were doing, I’d have to diagnose myself. When I got back home, I went online and entered some of my symptoms into Google — shakiness, rapid heart beats, shortness of breath, and nausea. I started browsing through various conditions, and through a process of elimination I realized I was having panic attacks.

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