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Revision as of 18:32, 19 June 2006

Welcome!

Hello, PaulWicks, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Burgundavia 10:55, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Image:Rilutek pac.gif

Burgundavia 10:55, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Paul,

Good to meet a fellow psychologist on Misplaced Pages. I just looked you up and I was interested to see you're at the IoP as I'm going to be starting there myself in October. Small world and all that! I'm away at the moment, but will look forward to reading your entries shortly.

- Vaughan 16:16, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

It is indeed a small world! What sort of job will you be doing there? I'm starting a postdoc in Parkinson's Disease, just finishing off my PhD at the moment.

--PaulWicks 21:40, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Hello also Paul - you may remember working with me last year in KCLSU, as VP Ed-Rep!

Re the copyright issue at Institute of Psychiatry from the Viewpoint article:if there is useful material that you wish to transcribe, then getting that okayed would be helpful, otherwise it can always be used as a basis for a new contribution from your goodself? --Coffeelover 21:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

A welcome welcome

Thanks for your note, Paul. And good to meet a fellow professional. I look forward to our collaboration. Michael...Mjformica 16:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Simon Wessely

Thanks for passing through, and if I can interest you in the discussion going on at Talk:Simon Wessely you'd be most welcome. The article definitely needs more eyes. - Just zis  Guy, you know? / 20:26, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

British neuropsych meeting

You mentioned on Talk:Conversion disorder that you recently attended a well-attended colloquium on functional movement disorders. I'd be very interested to read a published account of such a colloqium, if one exists. Do you know if such a thing is available?

Cheers, -ikkyu2 (talk) 22:45, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Neuroscience

Welcome to WikiProject Neuroscience! It's great to see new users add themselves to our group. It seems like you've been on Misplaced Pages for a while, but nevertheless, should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. If you make a neuroscience article related edits of which you're particularly proud, or if you see any articles in need, drop a message over on thproject talk page. Cheers! Semiconscious • talk 18:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Paul, the edits of 7 March were mine - sorry I hadn't signed in. Very nice article.Gleng 10:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Card Sort

Hey buddy, thanks for all your work on the Wisconsin Card Sort :-) - Abscissa 08:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Conversion Disorder

Hi Paul- in response to your question I think "Functional Neurological Deficit" is a much more accurate term. I agree with Jon Stone that "Deficit" is not the best term but for patients a loss of normal function is a deficit. It is much better than "Functional Symptoms" which I know stone prefers. However patients ultimately have to tell employers and "Functional Symptoms" is vague. By functional I mean "of no identifiable aetiology". As you will have guessed from my profile I have been diagnosed with a "Functional Neurological Deficit". David Bateman told me that 50% turn out to be MS 40% no one knows 10% are psychological. I was told by the chief consultant psychologist that I categorically did not have a conversion disorder and that my condition was post-viral caused by (hypothetical) damage to the hypothalamus. I was then told by a neurologist in Newcastle "When I send patients to a psychologist I'm always told there is nothing wrong, but there is, that's why I send them to a psychiatrist". Unfortunately in much the manner that Slater predicted (when you're not believed) I mucked up the appointment, the neurologist did likewise, breakdown in relationship, I read Freud and contacted Richard Webster who seems to have come to the same conclusions as me. So my motivation is that of the p@ssed of patient!!

I don't want to discuss my own case except to say- please, please, please try patients with fatigue related motor symptoms on 30mg of baclofen at night. I think it works by putting the brain into a deeper sleep than it has been capable of so that the next day the brain is less fatigued and therefore functions better. As time goes on and with graded exercise the brain is more rested, much fitter. After 2 years in a wheelchair I was able to do star jumps the next day. I should add that typical of post-viral illness I slept well but still woke fatigued with increasing motor symptoms as seemingly parts of my brain fell asleep. With baclofen this instantly changed. David Bateman tells me he has no idea why it works.

Simon 22:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)Alpinist

Conversion Disorder

Hi Paul- I will start "functional neurological deficit". I will have to think very carefully about it first. I really really can't say how useful reading Arthur Hurst's "the psychology of the senses and their functional disorders was". I have no idea what Richard Webster will ultimately say when his book is published, I suspect and agree with him that psychological mechanisms cannot be responsible for the more profound symptoms such as "hysterical blindness" for example. Somatoform disorders such as general malaise, abstract pain or for example the patient with a bad limp but no changes in muscle tone would account for the 10%. They are not however "conversion disorders" which does have a Freudian origin and meaning.

Hurst is useful with regard to functional symptoms not only through his profound understanding but for a model of how diagnosis can be conveyed to patients without a breakdown in doctor patient relationship. Hurst also cured most of his patients in one consultation. I think "hysteria" and "conversion disorder" are rejected by patients, not because they offend the patient but because the patient finds them phenomenologically untrue. Medicine tends to adopt a heterophenomenology to illness which in neurology is very easily divorced from the patient's experience. For me Hurst's understanding is of the neccesity of consciousness in sustaining function. ie to move a limb we need to be aware and remember our ability to do so. In a sense it is empowering to the patient- for example with functional deafness Hurst tells his patients that they need to learn to listen again as having become unaccustomed to listening (due to slight organic illness) they have forgotten how to do so.

We thus don't have all that Freudian cr@p about the unconscious, childhood abuse, repressed emotion etc.

From my own perspective I find this fascinating as I am interested in the evolution of consciousness (which began with the work of the catholic priest and paleoneurologist Teilhard de Chardin, my degree is in English and Philosophy). I think that perhaps functional symptoms are as I have said elsewhere the downside of a hyper-conscious species. We LEARN to move, walk, see, hear etc. It is very much a conscious experience rather than an instinctual motor response. As I don't accept dualistic explanations of mind/body I would thus suggest that organic changes have taken place to facilitate this "forgetting". It may well simply be as Hurst suggests that motor circuits require continual attention in order to function. Attention and volition also of course have an organic mechanism. Certainly his ability to cure patients in one session is remarkable. If you are unable to get a copy let me know and I can scan it to PDF. That's how important I think it is.

Anyway- stopped raining at last- no climbing but a rather unkempt garden to attend to.

best wishes- Simon

Simon 15:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)alpinist

Hurst

http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?searchurl=y=9&AID=10306626&PID=1825695&SID=22-197&bi=154165142&an=Hurst%2C+Arthur+F.+%281879-1944%29&tn=Croonian+Lectures+on+the+Psychology+of+the+Special+Senses+and+Their+Functional+Disorders

is where I got my copy from (prompted by Richard Webster). Have started Functional Neurological Deficit. Wrote it in word and pasted so it is a bit of a mess, especially the cross references. Term starts on Wednesday so rather busy with lesson prep/trying to resist another day's climbing.

Simon 12:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)alpinist

I agree Paul- very naughty, very lazy- no time!!! I'm sure you'll do good job. Actually I'm more interested in working out why baclofen should make me less tired during the day and have fewer episodes of loss of muscle tone (lost count of how many times I've tried to work this out) There is an organic explanation for everything I feel- even God. Tizanadine with it's action on the GABA b receptors had no effect. Anyway being sent back to the neurologist as decreasing the dose of baclofen makes me very sleepy and edit wiki in a childish way- lol.

best wishes

Simon 13:04, 18 April 2006 (UTC)alpinist

Conversion Disorder

Paul I think the article is excellent now- well done. Reflecting on the above is there scope to change the defintion on God to "the dual activation of the active and quiescent modes within the limbic system" in line with D'Aquili's research? Or would this upset people?

Simon 16:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)Alpinist

Beck Depression Inventory "Alpha" values

Paul, I am by no means an expert but wanted to ask you -- Are the values listed in the Beck Depression Inventory article for the "alpha" value for BDI-II correct? This page seems to give different values, specifically that the BDI-II value is .92. http://harcourtassessment.com/hai/ProductLongDesc.aspx?ISBN=015-8018-370&Catalog=TPC-USCatalog&Category=PsychopathologyProjectiveTechniques BDI-II (Coefficient Alpha = .92) higher than the BDI (Coefficient Alpha = .86). Cshay 15:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Functional Neurological Deficit

Paul that sounds interesting with regard to the service in London. I am very interested in those patients who experience de-personalisation/ de-realisation experiences prior to hysterical motor loss. I think there is a paper which shows this to be THE most common experience rather than trauma per se. The same circuits are also implicated in "religious" experience as identified by D'Aquili et al. It seems that the subsequent deafferentation within the CNS is associated with motor loss as described in fMRI studies. The de-realisation experience has obvious evolutionary benefits in traumatic experience ie A LACK of emotional engagement allowing the animal to leave it's limb in the lions mouth and escape. In pre-modern society it also would have had a profound social significance which has obviously been lost. I would hypothesise that in humans the evolutionary pressures on the pre-frontal cortex have created a wiring problem so that higher centres require limbic input in order to maintain reciprocal function (similar to Hurst). I've discussed this a little with Vuillumier (sorry can't spell). I would also hypothesise that de-realisation is actually largely random and is a result of the relative youth of human consciousness. I'm also fascinated by the phantom limb issue which does seem to have relevance to hysteria and even fibromyalgia. What do you think??

Trying to find time to think about all this is a pain. I'm teaching a-level language rather than literature in September so lots of study, need to somehow get back to language acquisition, Vygotsky etc- otherwise I'll be spouting neurology.

Simon 19:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC)alpinist

Refs after punctuation

Thank you for your message on my talk. I know this is a delicate thing I'm doing currently with my edits "Refs after punctuation" (I'm using a modifed WP:AWB for this). Thank you for your consent to agree on a common style for Misplaced Pages per WP:FOOT. And of course, thank you for contributing to Misplaced Pages! --Ligulem 09:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Parkinson's Disease

Paul - I welcome any and all help on the Parkinson's page, but as you may gather from my reply to your note, I expect you to run into strong opposition on the toxins matter from user General Tojo. He is also Viartis on the private forum that his toxois entries point to, and in real life is Keith Bridgeman, who holds a patent on the dopavite med. I am trying to make the page less his private preserve and more of a collaborative wiki, and failing. You can probably garner most of the rest of story from what's currently in the discussion and from some of the history. But, welcome, and let's have at it. I will, by the way, be off line from Tuesday through Sunday. I'll be interested to see how your efforts work out. --Dan 18:32, 19 June 2006 (UTC)