31. The Lightning Process.

The BBC have conducted an investigation into unproven treatments for Long Covid (LC), including one that’s familiar to most people with ME, the Lightning Process.

The Lightning Process is a three day programme/workshop, founded by (not a medical doctor) Phil Parker, which teaches people they can rewire their brains to cure their ME/LC symptoms. It costs £1000 or so, and practitioners aren’t required to have any medical qualifications or training, they’re essentially ‘life coaches’. Oh, and it’s utter nonsense.

This is what it consists of:

“In secret recordings by the BBC, coaches can be heard telling patients that almost anyone can recover from long Covid by changing their thoughts, language and actions.

Over three days on Zoom, the course taught the ritual that forms the basis of the programme. Every time you experience a symptom or negative thought, you say the word "stop", make a choice to avoid these symptoms and then do a positive visualisation of a time you felt well.

You do this while walking around a piece of paper printed with symbols - a ritual the BBC was told to do as many as 50 times a day.”

I first heard about the Lightning Process in 2015, shortly after I was diagnosed with ME. I had a meeting with a benefits advisor and they recommended it to me, and people have continued to recommend it to me ever since.

You see, when an illness doesn’t have a diagnostic test, like ME and LC, people tend to assume it’s ’all in the persons head’, and a shift in mindset is all they need to cure themselves. Multiple Sclerosis used to be one of them. It was written off as ‘hysterical paralysis’, up until the invention of the CAT scan machine and doctors could see the disease.

Subsequently, this has opened the doors for cash-greedy predators to prey on extremely unwell and desperate people in an attempt to sell their unproven ‘miracle cures’.

Thankfully, the NICE guideline (NICE are the English public body who provide guidance on the appropriate treatment and care of people with specific diseases and conditions for the NHS) is quite explicit in its objection of the LP:

“Do not offer the Lightning Process, or therapies based on it, to people with ME/CFS.”

Section 1.12.27, Page 41. ME/CFS Diagnosis and Management. NICE guideline. Published: 29 October 2021

The BBC investigation will be broadcast in today’s episode of ‘File On 4’ ‘Long Covid: Mind Over Matter’ on BBC Radio 4, and has been reported on in a BBC News article ‘Long Covid course is ‘exploiting people’, says ex-GB rower’.