I welcome Ehrenreich's denunciation of "the tyranny of positive thinking"

I welcome Barbara Ehrenreich's criticisms of the 'positive thinking' brigade who impose further problems and difficulties on breast cancer sufferers by exhorting them to a cheerfulness and optimism they may not feel and may consider neither appropriate nor logical. See Ehrenreich's Guardian article.

In my experience these nonsensical, exhausting extra burdens tend also to be heaped onto people suffering constant severe debilitating pain. I would include particular criticism of the self-styled Christians who tell people who are ill and/or in great pain that there is no need to be ill or in pain: they need only to accept Christ's healing. - They are credulous bullies, as are the health professionals who keep insisting to people who know that painkillers do not work for them and who do not want to take them, that the painkillers really do work and that it's the sufferer's own fault if they're in pain since they stubbornly refuse to 'try' them - ignoring the fact that it is because they have tried them - many times and unsuccessfully - and know the futility and harm of taking them, that they now refuse them.