Abnormalities in cognitive-emotional information processing in idiopathic environmental intolerance and somatoform disorders.

Comment:  The problem with most of these tests is that they fail to consider "reasons".  Anxiety tests, for example, ask "do you feel tired frequently"... yes or no.  Saying yes is a point for anxiety.  However, such a test fails to consider why someone may feel tired.  Do they work long hours?  Have a screaming baby who keeps them up at night?  Have CFS, hypothyroidism, hypoadrenalism, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or another medical condition which causes fatigue?  What really needs to be asked is "do you feel tired frequently with no known cause"?  But they don't ask that because then they can't sell their CBT therapy.  This results in many being misdiagnosed with mental disorders or having their real symptoms blamed on their psyche.  Very sad!

 

J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2009 Mar;40(1):70-84. Epub 2008 May 23. LinkOut

Abnormalities in cognitive-emotional information processing in idiopathic environmental intolerance and somatoform disorders.

Witthöft M, Rist F, Bailer J.

Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Staudingerweg 9, D-55099 Mainz, Germany. witthoef@uni-mainz.de

Idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI) represents a functional somatic syndrome marked by diverse bodily complaints attributed to various substances in the environment. Evidence for abnormalities in affective information processing similar to somatoform disorders (SFD) has recently been found in people with IEI. In order to further investigate these cognitive-emotional abnormalities, we compared people with IEI (n=49), SFD only (n=43), and non-somatoform controls (n=54) with respect to their performance in the extrinsic affective Simon task (EAST). This task allowed us to dissociate indicators of automatic affective associations and emotional intrusion effects of both bodily complaints and IEI-trigger words. Negative association effects toward IEI-trigger words were strongest for IEI participants. Emotional intrusion effects of symptom words were larger both in IEI and SFD than in controls. The results of enhanced negative automatic evaluations of IEI-trigger words and greater attention allocation to symptom words support cognitive models of IEI.

PMID: 18501333 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]