Environmental Illness Myth & Reality [Hardcover]

Environmental illness: certain health professionals and clinical ecologists claim it impacts and inhibits 15 percent of the population. Its afflicted are led to believe environmental illness (EI) originates with food, chemicals, and other stimuli in their surroundings -as advocates call for drastic measures to remedy the situation.
What if relief proves elusive-and the patient is sent on a course of ongoing, costly and ineffective treatment ?
Several hundred individuals who believed they were suffering from EI have been evaluated or treated by Herman Staudenmayer since the 1970s. Staudenmayer believed the symptoms harming his patients actually had psychophysiological origins-based more in fear of a hostile world than any suspected toxins contained in the environment.
Staudenmayer's years of research, clinical work-and successful care-are now summarized in Environmental Illness: Myth & Reality. Dismissing much of the information that has attempted to defend EI and its culture of victimization, Staudenmayer details the alternative diagnoses and treatments that have helped patients recognize their true conditions-and finally overcome them, often after years of prolonged suffering.Foreword by Henry Claman, M.D.
What is Environmental Illness
Toxicogenic Theory
Unsubstantiated Diagnoses and Treatments
Studies Supporting the Psychogenic Theory
Assessment of the Toxicogenic Research Program
Psychogenic Theory
Placebo and Somatization
Learned Sensitivity
The Stress Response
Panic Attacks and Anxiety Disorders
Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
The Limbic System and Trauma
Personality Discorders
Iatrogenic Illness: Exploitation and Harm
Treatment
Politics
Future Directions
Appendix A: A Methodology of Scientific Research Programs
Appendix B: Court Rulings Unfavorable to Environmental Illness