There is some scary stuff out there

I recently was directed to a blog post that scared the crap out of me. Sarah Wilson apparently believes that self-hatred is the real cause of autoimmune disease. In her post, she does not use any scientific evidence to back up her claim, which let’s face it, is unlikely to have any randomised controlled trials anyway. She refers to a TED talk by someone who in her own words is a “healer to the stars”. I don’t know about you but that is not someone you can use as a credible scientist in my opinion. What was even scarier were some of the comments on her post that were almost bordering on reverence for Sarah.

Now I don’t know Sarah Wilson.  I do know she is the person behind I Quit Sugar — where she apparently also recommends not eating fruit or dried fruit. Once again, I’m not sure how much scientific research went into her program but there are people out there who swear by her. Me, I like my fruit. And I’ll eat a couple of serves a day.

I’m pretty sure Sarah Wilson is a nice person but bloggers like her worry me. They make claims on their blogs based on their spiritual and new-age beliefs and proclaim it like the gospel truth. Unfortunately, they also have a huge following who then take on those claims. The fact of the matter is that Sarah Wilson and these bloggers are NOT scientists or doctors or psychologists or mental health professionals or nutritionists themselves. Unless they are trained in any of these areas {and by that, I mean have a degree}, they are not in a position to make any of these claims. Because the fact of the matter is that all human beings are different. Just because Sarah apparently dealt with her anxiety using ‘self-love’ {whatever that may be!}, it’s not going to work for every other person with an anxiety disorder. Rather, evidence-based interventions like CBT, ACT or even medication are likely to help majority of the population suffering from anxiety. Why? Because research proves it. As for autoimmune or genetic disorders, trust me, self-love ain’t going to ‘cure’ it. Carly and Nat both had some great posts on that.

So to all the readers out there, I beg you, do not take things like this as gospel. And as for the bloggers, you have a huge responsibility here. You cannot make claims about things without backing it up. And if you do, you need to put a disclaimer stating it is your opinion. I am a trained psychologist and while I blog a lot about mental health, not once would I offer advice. I am clear to state what are my experiences and clear to state what therapies are evidence-based. And there is no way I would ‘counsel’ people via my blog because this is not my work here. It is unethical.

As health professionals, most of us need to abide by ethics.

I wonder whether it’s time for wellness coaches, life coaches and maybe even bloggers to be bound by a code of ethics!

Do you think bloggers have a responsibility in how they provide information to their readers?

Do share! 

photo credit: Stuck in Customs via photopin cc

Until next time,

Cheers!!!