Comments on: What’s Causing Cheerleader Hysteria? Signs of a Struggle Within the Brain

By: Jennine Hoheisel

Jennine Hoheisel — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:46:23 +0000

Performing conversational hypnosis, unlike most styles of hypnotherapy performed by professionals, is done without the other person’s knowledge. This is a subtle form of hypnotherapy, and borders the line of ethics. If you want only purely ethical hypnotherapy, conversational hypnotherapy is not for you.

By: Nancy Hope

Nancy Hope — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:46:55 +0000

The first thing I thought of the Creuztfeld Jacob. Mad cow. I saw video of a young woman and she had odd symptoms at first followed by degeneration. Such a rare disease that its full range of possible onset symptoms may yet be unknown.

By: elahrairah

elahrairah — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:09:09 +0000

as a professional drugs worker, i can tell you that the symptoms displayed are unlikely to be linked to ingestion of any known recreational drugs. the social patterns and numbers of sufferers don’t match either. i have no idea what it is, but i doubt that drug use is anything to do with it.

By: Rafael Morales

Rafael Morales — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 11:34:26 +0000

I get a kick out of all you people with your complicated theories about this disorder. But all of you, but one (DrugMonkey, March 2nd, 2012 at 9:11 am ), ignore the most likely scenario. Talk about the typical “Gordian Knot”.

Those girls won’t admit it, but they all most likely have been taking recreational drugs. There are drugs that will not show up in testing, unless you know exactly for what you are testing.

By: Geack

Geack — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:49:51 +0000

@ 30. Karin (and others):
These students have all been examined thoroughly by people who make a living tracking down the causes of symptom outbreaks like this. They were tested for drugs and toxins and infections and none were found. Everyone in the area knows about the decades-old chemical spill; it’s not that close to the school, and not all the kids with symptoms went to the school nearest the location, and other people with greater daily exposure to the area than the students have never shown these symptoms, and the decay rates of the chemicals spilled are well known and understood, and there are about a dozen other good reasons why the spill is irrelevant. Erin Brockovich and her lawsuit squad weren’t allowed on school grounds because they have proven themselves to have little regard for facts and would contribute nothing useful.

Why is it that every time something like this makes the news, so many people assume that every single person directly involved in the situation is either hopelessly incompetent or actively participating in a conspiracy?

By: Karin

Karin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:15:27 +0000

At the age of internet, YouTube, television in each room, why aren’t teenage girls all over the country starting to have tics, if it were mass hysteria? Why is it confined to Le Roy? There has to be an environmental factor involved.

By: susan

susan — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:58:31 +0000

Is the SimonW commenting here the same SimonW as decided the Camelford water poisonings were some form of hysterical conversion disorder?

Whatever happened to that good old honest medical word, “ideopathic”?

By: susan

susan — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:54:26 +0000

SimonW said:
“Science isn’t a group of disciplines, it is a way of dealing with knowledge. Psychologists use the same principles as chemists, biologists and the other ‘hard’ scientists.”

The first statement is correct, the second, completely and resoundingly wrong.
Cognitive Psychology claims to study the “mind”. It takes a top down approach, something akin to learning how to bake bread by studying a loaf and some crumbs rather than the basic ingredients and their chemical interactions with temperature and water.

The mind is merely an illusion of consciousness.
Double dissociation of mind and brain has never been demonstrated.

Psychologists do not study the basics of science – they do not speak the language of science.
Like trying to do calculus without knowing how to do arithmetic.

Psychology is not, and never will be, a science. You don’t get to be a scientist just because you can shove some numbers into SPSS!

Sue. (BSc. Hons. (2i) Psychology)

By: constant reader

constant reader — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:16:57 +0000

Whatever you call it, the phenomenon described by “conversion disorder” exists. I think the two girls who first exhibited the symptoms may be being done a grave disservice by all the focus on toxins — the toxins become a place to “offload” the very real problems in their family lives that these girls have been forced to contend with and carry on, uncomplainingly. A so-called conversion disorder allows a person to be “cared-for,” to receive the cconcern they have not been receiving in daily life.

I know because I experienced it. A few years ago, during a time of great family stress, I experienced symptoms very similar to those of these girls. My legs jerked and buckled. I had tics and large, embarrassing twitches. The first neurologist who examined me and did all kinds of tests (MRI, blood tests, spinal tap, reflex testing) did not have an answer and concluded I had some kind of neurodegenerative disease that would slowly progress, though he couldn’t say exactly what it was. Then one night, while googling frantically for information, I came across a description of conversion disorder. It so perfectly matched my symptoms that I had to consider the possibility that this is what I had. Here is what I did: I simply allowed myself to stop going to the doctor. I took a meditation course and told myself that it couldn’t hurt to relax and become more mindful, even if I did have a neurodegenerative disease. I focused on trying to acknowledge the stresses in my life and get the support I needed. Little by little, over a period of months, the symptoms waned and only came back when I was sleep-deprived. They are completely gone now (even when tired). I’m now convinced that the tics and twitches were psychogenic and were an expression of my need to escape the stressors in my life and be cared for. If I hadn’t diagnosed my own problem, I don’t think any doctor in the world could have convinced me — I felt no conscious control over what was happening, and in in fact, the harder I tried to control the tics and involuntary movements, the worse they got. My heart goes out to these girls, and I hope they find relief.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:27:21 +0000

The discussion of Freud and common sense highlights a side of this I also haven’t seen covered – being a normal, well-adjusted person by the standards of our society might not necessarily be mentally healthy, and might even be leading people towards weird tics and breakdowns. We’re conditioned by advertising or our parents to worry about things we don’t need to worry about, to think that our brain works in ways such that we can’t possibly feel ok about (Y) unless we do (X), and all of that is amplified when you’re a teenager in high school constantly meeting deadlines that are designed to prepare you for a desk job. So I always wonder where the line is with psychology, between what is accepted as something you can change and something that isn’t, and how optimistic the placement of that line is about the ability of society to change how its thinking too.

All that said – I would not be at all surprised if an environmental factor is being ignored. Look at leaded gasoline, that was covered up for half a century. But particularly in a small group like this, it could also be contaminated food outside of school, or some other product that they all happened to buy around the same time. Or it could be some combination of personality with an outside factor, like with cat owners and Toxoplasma gondii.