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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

In that sense the authors' next mourning phase is already showing. They seem to have already been negotiating for quite some time. 7/7

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

And 2. Although it is mentioned that the terms 'epistemic trust and injustice' have been used to criticize these approaches, they are also used here to whitewash 'new' forms of the same thing. 6/7

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Also notice the appropriation and further whitewashing (2): 1. The concept of 'persistent somatic symtoms' is reiterated as 'a new map for understanding '. You can read about how it's abused here: academic.oup.com/brain/articl... and here: www.frontiersin.org/journals/med... 5/7

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

More so, in the introduction they 'nevertheless' argue 'some studies suggest that interventions (...) reduce symptoms, improve functioning, and support recovery from CFS and other persistent somatic symptoms'. Referring to the classics, as well as to their own stuff. 4/7

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

Still it's disappointing that the authors don't seem able to summarize and appraise the referred to criticism to CBT etc. adequately, not even slightly referring to: the heap of methodological concerns (fatigue, CFS) that a decent OBJECTIVE outcome has NEVER been produced, 2/7

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

It becomes even more telling, when neuroscientists/clinicians - who often whine about supposed 'mind-body dichotomies' - start perpetuating them themselves: why else is the only mention of central brain involvement one fitting the narrative of 'central gain' and 'effort preference'? 4/9

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

For some reason holistic symptom reductionists often think linearly themselves: 'None of this settles whether the primary disturbance is bottom-up or top-down'. Which is solved by a god-like 'signal weighing' narrative, that appropriates some peripheral biomedical findings. 3/9

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

This seems pathognomonic of a self-sustaining selection bias among certain academics, who don't seem interested or knowledgeable in the systemic, or central, biology of PAIS/ME, just cherry pick some biomed stuff, and let that converge with their own ideas and interests. 2/9

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The end of the interview beautifully shows an important reason for psychiatry's conflation on dualism: Its endless circular rationalizing is a defense mechanism to 'guard against' the all encompassing anxiety for the loss of its relevance if things change (and improve). 6

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

The selective frame that there's this constant danger of 'disconnecting the mind from the brain that needs to be guarded against', is as much a reflex within psychiatry's to reiterate its relevance - ever since the 'neuroreductionist age' couldn't explain everything -, 3

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

'I feel so good about myself 'cause I'm instrumentalizing a group that has been harmed by psychologization, to combat society's bias against psychiatric disease, by saying they're very similar. Thus hurting both.' It's just naive and regressive internalized narcissism. 24

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

So this is not just a religious war: it's a war against religious ideas in medicine. Ideas and a dynamic the author openly admits he himself is not impartial to. 22 Ironically, at the end he demonstrates his denial by turning his hypocrisy into a (projected) sense of irony. 22

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Next he invokes the false-dichotomy argument, as 'biopsychosocial' zealots always do. And then reduces vast methodological critiques to 'placebo', thinking this proves his point. 20

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Predictably, at the end he jumps on the neurplasticity train and uses cognitive rehab after stroke as an example of how 'psychological interventions' can treat biology. That stroke patients don't have a systemic disease with dysfunctioning cell biology doesnt matter ofc. 19

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

So the author, a religion professor, in the end got what he wanted. The confirmation this is not a scientific, but a religious war. Isn't it nice to reiterate the relevance and ideas of yourself and your contemporaries, instead of admitting what went and is going wrong? 18

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Here a retired GP, biostatistician and epidemiologist, by no means an expert, is sought out to claim the methodology of 'some of the studies' is fine. And this notoriously bad example is used to substantiate this.😂 Confirmation bias galore. jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... 17

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

And did he just invoke this (really laughably bad) German study as an argument for 'extensive evidence of psychological risk factors', mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/27/1... and then practically martyr Paul Garner? 15

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

And did he use the mismatch found between 'objective' deficits on neuropsychological examination, that often isn't sensitive enough or adequately time-controlled, as an argument to use more objective outcomes, but later use it as an unfalsifiable argument for psych factors? 14

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

And did the author just use this 'study' as an example of 'multiple studies' saying PEM is only a subjective phenomenon. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC... And did he just call this a 'rigorous trial' showing exercise in LC is fine? jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... 13

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Let alone that it's able to explain the pile of bio changes found, here reduced to 'no clear biological explanation'. This seemingly neutral questioning of the vastly objectified PEM phenomenon, suggesting only advocates, and not experts, agree on it, fits that perfectly. 12

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Seems like someone got lured into amplifying proponents' Calimerotactic of crying 'stigma', - when decades of 'research' still haven't produced a decent mechanistic rationale, let alone evidence - instead of looking at the bigger historical picture. @AlanLevinovitz A 🧵 1-25

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

Views that, intentionally or not, often are in line with the purported relevance of the academic's field in question. Stuff that has been addressed and debunked countless of times already. Like the lazy 'reductionist' critique of the biomed model for instance.

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Tom Molmans, MD @molbaas.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Mostly by clinicians and researchers from the 'frontline of psychosomatic illness' who never attended a philosophy class, but use the terms 'reductionism', 'dualism' and 'Cartesian' as ideologically motivated tropes. Nonsense veiled under pseudo-intellectualized rhetoric. 3/5

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