Health is a major concern for many people around the world. But health also sells. Anyone who uses social media will be aware of the vast number of organizations and individual influencers promoting competing health methods, from obscure supplements and 10-step programs to wisdom books, cold water baths and luxury spiritual retreats. Designed to help you reach your “optimal self,” these methods range in level of credibility from the plausible and questionable to the downright ridiculous and insane.
At the same time, clinically-validated, empirically-supported approaches to mental health treatment and improvement can themselves get lost in this soup of pseudoscience. So how do we distinguish between legitimate scientific approaches and just plain nonsense? IFLScience recently wrote: Dr. Jonathan SteerWe asked , a clinical psychologist and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Calgary, for the answer.
Why is pseudoscience in the wellness industry bad?
If you’ve ever experienced depression, anxiety, or other related conditions, you know how difficult life can be when your mental health is poor. Everyday obstacles become daunting challenges, and distancing yourself from hobbies, friends, and loved ones can leave your sense of self shrinking and diminishing. And unfortunately, the road to recovery can be long. Mental health is complicated. Even evidence-based treatments don’t work for everyone, and some people feel isolated and confused when they can’t find a solution to their problems. And it’s easy to be fooled by false claims, especially when you’re looking for results.
Over the past decade, the wellness industry has expanded to an estimated value of over $100 billion. $4.3 trillion In 2020, it reached USD 100,000. $8.5 trillion By 2027. It seems like more and more people are looking for ways to improve or take control of their health in general, and their mental health in particular. But the industry is filled with bogus claims, tinctures, and tonics that would make a quack drug salesman blush. While it may be easy to dismiss it all as harmless quackery, there’s a dark reality to this kind of pseudoscience that has serious implications.
Pseudoscience is a “big problem”, says author Steer. Looking at the science: Protecting your mental health from the wellness industry“It’s harmful in at least three ways. It can also be directly harmful as a result of the treatments being used,” explain the authors of a new book, “Wellness Therapies,” which raises concerns about psychological misinformation and pseudoscience in the wellness industry.
This includes the common example of pseudoscientific treatments simply being ineffective and worsening patients’ mental health symptoms, but the supposed cures are kill One Patient.
“And pseudoscience is indirectly harmful because it can rob people of their hard-earned time and money. In that sense, pseudoscience can be very exploitative, both emotionally and financially. And while it takes away their time, their mental health symptoms may worsen again, because they could be spending that time seeking evidence-based treatment.”
The third way in which pseudoscience is harmful is much broader and relates to the problems facing society at large, particularly with regard to public trust in science as an institution and scientists as individuals.
“[T]”Tolerating pseudoscience is unhealthy for society as a whole,” Steer added. “I think we’ve really seen that with the pandemic. My favorite example is [seeing] “How the Wellness Industry Capitalized on Anti-Vaccine Sentiments in the Anti-Vaccine Movement.”
The battlefield of misinformation and pseudoscience
Misinformation and disinformation in the medical community (the former is inaccurate or false information, the latter is information that is intentionally misleading) is nothing new, but it has clearly increased since the 2000s. COVID-19 pandemicThis situation is exacerbated by social media, which often spreads false claims.
For example, a study conducted in 2022 found that more than half of the most popular TikTok videos Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder They contained false information. Moreover, only one in five of these videos were deemed “useful” by the researchers.
Recently, Steer worked on a soon-to-be-published study with Marco Zenon, a public health researcher who examines misinformation and online portrayals of health and wellness issues. Zenon wanted to know how useful and accurate videos using certain hashtags were for viewers.
“[Zenone] They asked me to participate in the study. [we] “I watched the top 1,000 videos on TikTok with the hashtag #mentalhealth.”
“[W]I saw it during a specific period in October 2021 […] And we found that about a third, or 33 percent, were misleading,” Steer explained.
While most of the videos featured users sharing their personal experiences and opinions, a third of the misinformation videos essentially repeated old anti-psychiatry tropes, such as the idea that medication is harmful and part of a conspiracy to extort money from patients.
Worryingly, Steer, Zenon and their colleagues found that the misleading videos were shared, liked and commented on more than the videos that scientists considered accurate, which is disturbing given that #mentalhealth has been visited more than 107 billion times on TikTok, according to Steer.
“To me, that just proves how far-reaching these videos are,” Steer added.
“This speaks to the idea that social media isn’t going to go away. So this is kind of a call out to science communicators. We need more science communicators. Military“We need to become more organized, on the front lines so to speak, on the ground, to find creative ways to debunk misinformation about mental health and misinformation in general.”
How do we distinguish misinformation and pseudoscience?
The problem with identifying pseudoscience is that it can sometimes seem very convincing. Like the Trojan horse with healing crystals inside, pseudoscience practitioners wrap their dubious claims in scientific jargon to make them seem impressive and credible. “Energy,” “electromagnetic field,” and “quantum” are all terms that are commonly misused in the health industry.
Without scientific knowledge, how do we determine whether a branch of computer science called quantum computing is more legitimate than so-called “quantum healing”? Or, in the context of mental health, how do we distinguish between two evidence-based therapies, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure therapy, from something like thought field therapy (TFT), neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), or reversing therapy? All three of the latter are Sounds scientific The ornaments are there, but the evidential substance is lacking.
This is the challenge many of us face when dealing with the sheer number of competing products and treatments available to address mental health issues: it can be overwhelming and intimidating, and unfortunately, there is no single standard by which to determine whether something is an evidence-based practice, discipline, or treatment, or whether it’s just fancy-sounding bullshit.
This is where Stea’s work, especially his new book, comes in handy. Stea identifies nine warning signs to help readers gauge whether they might be dealing with something fishy. These include:For this purpose A “hypothesis” to explain a negative result. This includesOh, it didn’t work because you didn’t Believe Enough“
Another red flag is a reverse burden of proof, where the person to whom a statement is made is expected to prove that the statement is false. This is usually done under the heading “Please prove it coffee Anal penetration is not good for me.”
Similarly, practices or treatments that avoid the peer review process or rely primarily on anecdotal reports of confirmed cases are “A friend of a friend really benefited. Crystal Healing” – then you’re likely dealing with pseudoscience.
“I hope this book will empower and inspire people to take control of their own mental health and help them feel equipped to protect themselves from mental health misinformation and mental health pseudoscience — not just for themselves, but for their loved ones and everyone else,” Steer explained.
The world of the internet and social media will likely remain a tense battlefield filled with misinformation and dangerous ideas coming from the wellness industry, but having more ways to recognize it may help limit its spread.
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The content of this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
