Friendly Foe

In research for my (not to secret) project, I came across a reference site that I could include in the resource page on my secret website, oh yeah, not so secret website. It is a site by the Misophonia Treatment Institute. Cool name. But there's a problem. Here's the tagline from the site:

Misophonia Treatment Institute

Helping You Overcome Your Misophonia

The Misophonia Institute also has a very nice graphic on its home page:

 

Misophonia Treatment Institute

Being the skeptic that I am, I investigated this site and especially its founder, Tom Dozier, MS. Tom has a (BCBA) in behavioral analysis. This appears to be a valid field of study. 

He states that he has studied human reflexes and that misophonia is an involuntary reflex so he "applies the science" to make the misophonia trigger go away. He calls this rewiring the neural connections in the autonomic nervous system of the brain stem.

But let's back up for just a minute. My research on misophonia has revealed how little is actually known about the disorder. All of the sites I've visited have presented theories about what misophonia is and what the symptoms are, but none have proposed any specific treatment. The consensus is that there simply isn't enough scientific knowledge to develop an effective treatment at this time. The theories that are published on the Internet in regard to the origin and cause of misophonia usually fall into a description such as this one found on the lifewithmisophonia.wordpress.com website:

"The auditory pathways may be functioning normally, but there is an abnormally strong reaction of the limbic (emotional system) and autonomic nervous system (body control system) to which the auditory system is intimately connected.”

Now back to the MTI (Misophonia Treatment Institute). The Misophonia Treatment Institute was organized in October 2013 with Tom Dozier as the director. The MTI is a virtual institution and has, in the short 18 months of its existence, already scheduled a PRT (Psychosomatic Remediation Technique) seminar in Anaheim, CA next month. ($400/person with "satisfaction guaranteed)".

So, you may wonder: "What is PRT"?

The PRT treatment uses acupuncture principles, without needles, and it applies pressure and light to meridian points on the body.

I know I can be sarcastic but isn't presenting pressure and light as a new treatment modality a little lame? Discounting its woo-woo factor, PRT sounds like a very unscientific approach to a treatment of a real physiological illness or disorder. I had to automatically relegate PRT to the realm of pseudoscience as soon as its methods were revealed. It seems to me that you could just very well employ any of the other pressure and light (read: energy) treatments that already exists such as reiki, therapeutic touch, acupressure, light therapy, tapping (which is VERY popular right now), vibrational medicine and dozens of other such energetic healing treatment modalities.

To their credit, a lot of the above mentioned kinds of energetic treatments have had many people employ them for a very long time and continue to do so. Asian people have used acupuncture for thousands of years. Reiki came to the west from Japan in the late thirties and is in wide use. Crystals and stones have a long-term presence in the energetic healing world as does Ayurvedic medicine, Feng Shui, Magnetotherpy and reflexology.

As of March 4th, 2014 (5 days before this blog post was written), Tom Dozier reports having treated 7 people. Seven. Only seven. Seven is less than ten. The first treatment was done about 5 months ago (five is also less than 10). Also I find it interesting that one of the seven people treated was Tom's daughter (who was "cured").

Isn't this about as far as we need to go in discussing this new treatment for misophonia in regard to it being a valid scientifically proven and effective treatment?

To someone with this disorder without a discerning mind or skeptical approach to what can be found on the Internet, the Misophonia Treatment Institute can appear to be a legitimate option for obtaining treatment or obtaining factual information.

Can I prove it is NOT a valid treatment modality or that it DOESN'T present factual information? No, I can't do that. But then neither can I prove there is no teapot orbiting the planet Saturn.
 
OK, one parting shot and an interesting affiliation in regard to the Misophonia Treatment Institute, PRT and Tom's cohort, Dr. Scott Sessions:

Here's two quotes from Tom Dozier, MS, BCBA and the Misophonia Treatment Institute:

"Based on the research in acquired reflexes and relevant published journal articles, Tom developed a new misophonia treatment mehod (sic)"

"He has applied this method successfully to several individuals. When the treatment conditions are right, individuals experience a great decrease in the reactions to trigger sounds or even have no reaction (cured) for that trigger."

 So Tom is saying that if conditions are right, he can cure misophonia. 

Those of you that know me personally will appreciate the information I gleaned from my research on the Misophonia Treatment Institute (it wasn't easy to find). Although it is not mentioned anywhere within their website, Tom Dozier and Dr. Scott Sessions appear to be involved in the Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). I'm not saying that they're Mormons but between the two of them they list the following organizations on their profiles:  Brigham Young University, LDS Employment Resource Services and the Deseret Morning News (an LDS publication).

God Loves Mormons and He Wants Some More!