There are times, Virginia, when it’s all I can do, just to keep from breaking down. It’s not April 1 yet, somehow, Sue Arnold has put up a review of Patrick Holford and David Miller’s How to Quit in the Guardian. Gullibility exudes from every syllable, so one shrugs when Arnold reveals that she followed some EST and personal awareness courses that have left her “permanently scarred”. Sadly, she seems to have learned nothing from this encounter with people who are well-intentioned but lack an evidence-base for their enthusiasms.
Holford, a psychologist who has spent years working in addiction treatment centres, covers them all. His thesis is basically that if you can get your drug-damaged brain chemistry working correctly, kicking your habit will be relatively painless. Diet is the key.
Well, yes, if you accept Holford in the way that he promotes himself in the publicity for How to Quit Without Feeling S**t, then you might think that somebody who qualified with a 2:2 in Psychology back in 1979, with no further clinical courses or training can call himself a psychologist. To be fair, anyone can, it’s not a protected title. As for the “years working in addiction centres”, that is a claim that might be made with as much vigour and more accuracy by bar staff or tobacconists.
HolfordWatch admires the way in which Holford so clearly presents himself as the origin of the “drug-damaged brain chemistry” thinking, without reference to others in the field. We also acknowledge that it is a remarkable feat to have somebody like Arnold say “Diet is the key” after reeling off the list of supplements that she feels that she must buy.
I was amazed to find myself feverishly making notes about the supplements I should be taking – tyrosine? Chromium? Magnesium ascorbate? – to make life without cigarettes bearable.
It is rather sad that in amidst her excitement at discovering such simple solutions, Arnold did not pause to consider why the book is long on assertion and short on actual evidence (see Lee on when he attended the seminar on the book). Nor did she catch the strong resemblance between the treatment interventions that are recommended and the unevidenced zealotry of EST as it was practised in the form that left her “scarred”. One might have thought that after such previous experiences, she might have her receptors finely-tuned to detect evangelism without an evidence-base. Even if not Arnold, some responsible person at the Guardian. Sadly, it seems not: they are dazzled by the pundit brand equity.
I’m sure that’s profound in some way and serves as a microcosm for the financial malarkey that is contributing to the present recession.
What we have here is receptiveness to slick communication and an inability to learn from past experience.
Sigh. I’m not sure what else to say…
If Sue Arnold finds Patrick Holford and David Miller’s programme-without-evidence to be persuasive, I have a bridge to sell her.
You covered the lack of support for some of these supplements when you wrote about Jerome Burne and The Economist.
So, Sue Arnold is happy to make notes but not to do any further research to see if it holds water. That’s her choice, but I hope that it doesn’t model behaviour for anyone else.
Sue Arnold can be very woo which is surprising as it is conventional medicine not CAM that helped her survive her brain tumour.
I got the book after it was recommended universally by my mother. I found it interesting. I bought the supplements and it’s working, far more than I imagined. I am amazed. There is truth in it. It changed everything, and it feels like it’s from the inside out. I appreciate that you seek the truth but in this case I am thrilled to say that you are wrong.