Michael Hyland has made the following theoretical contributions

Early career:

Methodological complementarity is a way of integrating psychological and biological theories, but at the same time retaining the integrity of both type of theory. 

Publications include

HYLAND M 1985 'DO PERSON VARIABLES EXIST IN DIFFERENT WAYS' AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST 40, (9) 1003-1010  DOI

KIRSCH I & HYLAND M 1987 'HOW THOUGHTS AFFECT THE BODY - A METATHEORETICAL FRAMEWORK' JOURNAL OF MIND AND BEHAVIOR 8, (3) 417-434

HYLAND M & KIRSCH I 1988 'METHODOLOGICAL COMPLEMENTARITY - WITH AND WITHOUT REDUCTIONISM' JOURNAL OF MIND AND BEHAVIOR 9, (1) 5-12

Early Mid career

Theories of quality of life assessment were proposed as the basis for questionnaire assessment.

Publications include

Hyland, M. E. (1992). A reformulation of quality of life for medical science.Quality of Life Research, 1(4), 267-272.

Hyland ME 1992 'Selection of items and avoidance of bias in quality of life scales' Pharmacoeconomics 1, (3) 182-190

HYLAND M 1994 'EVIDENCE FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTS OF QUALITY-OF-LIFE - A REVIEW OF DATA SUPPORTING THE CAUSAL PROCESS APPROACH' QUALITY OF LIFE RESEARCH 3, (1) 42-43

Hyland, M. E. (2003). A brief guide to the selection of quality of life instrument. Health Qual Life Outcomes, 1(1), 24-29.

Late mid career

Motivational concordance is a theory applying self-determination theory to the placebo context, and provides a motivational alternative to the dominant cognitive and conditioning theories of placebo.

1.    Publications include

Hyland ME & Whalley B 2008 'Motivational concordance: an important mechanism in self-help therapeutic rituals involving inert (placebo) substances' J Psychosom Res 65,(5) 405-413 Author Site , DOI

Hyland ME 2011 'Motivation and placebos: do different mechanisms occur in different contexts?' Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 366, (1572) 1828-1837 Author Site ,DOI

 

 

Late career

A new type of theory to explain functional disorders.  This theory applies concepts from artificial intelligence and complexity theory to the human body.  The theory forms the basis of a therapeutic intervention called ‘body reprogramming’.  The theory was given the name (by others) of ‘the Hyland model’.  

Publications include

Hyland ME 2001 'Extended network learning error: A new way of conceptualising chronic fatigue syndrome' PSYCHOLOGY & HEALTH 16, (3) 273-287 Author Site , DOI

Hyland M 2001 'The intelligent body' New Scientist 170, (2292) 32-33

Hyland ME 2002 'The intelligent body and its discontents' JOURNAL OF HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY 7, (1) 21-32 Author Site , DOI

 

A brief account of the current version of the theory is given below.

A Summary of the Hyland Model

 

Background and theoretical overview

1.      Neither biological nor psychological theories are able to provide a comprehensive explanation of the biology and symptomatology of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.  The Hyland model is both a new type of theory and a paradigm shift.  It is based on a new type of theoretical concept or event that is intermediary between the biological and psychological levels of theorising.

2.      The model uses biological concepts, psychological concepts as well as the additional intermediary concepts.

3.      The intermediary level theoretical events are emergent properties of the biological system and explain rather than merely describe the link between biological events and psychological events.

4.      The intermediary level is assumed to be a complex parallel distributed processing (PDP) system, distributed throughout the body. Theoretical entities at this level supervise and integrate the functioning of biological and psychological control systems. 

5.       The intermediary level PDP system is capable of self-organisation: Psychological and biological events can create self-organisational change.

 

The cause of FM and CFS according to the model

6.      The body is an adaptive system and has mechanisms for the adaptive inhibition of behaviour.  Certain types of biologically mediated and psychologically mediated event lead to behavioural inhibition, where this adaptive inhibition protects the body from damage, promotes recovery, or promotes a more successful interaction with the environment.

7.      This adaptive inhibitory mechanism is at the intermediary level.  Stop signals are produced at the intermediary level as a consequence of biologically mediated events (e.g., infection and damage) and psychological mediated events (e.g., goal failure, repetitive actions and punishment.

8.      The stop signal integrates the information coming from the events that are described in biological and psychological terms, and as a consequence of this integration produces psychological symptoms (e.g., fatigue, pain) and short term biological changes (e.g., autonomic and immune changes) – i.e., events at the intermediary level cause changes at the psychological and biological levels of explanation . 

9.      As a general rule, people respond to their symptoms, and they alter their behaviour when stop signals arise. People stop doing things when they are ill and they stop behaviours that cause pain, goal failure, punishment and over-activity.

10. There are several reasons why behaviour is not inhibited despite stop signals – either because the signals do not lead to symptoms (e.g., excitement or interest in the activity) or because of cognitive factors that lead to the continuation of behaviour (e.g., social obligations), or because of adverse circumstances (e.g., trauma).

11. If behavioural inhibition does not occur in response to the generation of stop signals, then the intermediary level (which is assumed to be a complex, self-organising, parallel processing system) adapts or self-organises gradually over time.

12. The adaptation process leads to the formation of a ‘stop program’ where the stop signals become potentiated and fixed.

13. The stop program produces long term biological and psychological changes, that create the variable but widespread symptomatology and biological changes associated chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

14. The stop program creates non-adaptive symptoms.  Fatigue is almost always experienced, and there may be widespread and diffuse pain linked to central sensitisation – where minor or benign sensory inputs are interpreted as aversive symptoms.  Other manifestations include dysphoric mood states as well as symptoms associated with autonomic, endocrine, immune or gastric dysfunction (e.g., dizziness, poor temperature regulation, frequent infections, nausea). 

15. Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are spectrum disorders where ‘stop signals’ have become potentiated  into a ‘stop program’ due to lifestyle factors, because, for one reason or another, the person has kept going or had to keep going despite ‘stop signals.’  The ‘stop program’ is responsible for a wide range of medically unexplained symptoms.

 

1.      Note 1: Although this is a new type of theory in relation to functional disorders, the general approach is not new.  For example, it is consistent with proposal of Antony et al., Current Opinion in Biotechnology. 2012; 23: 604-608.

that “The ultimate goal in Systems Biomedicine is to apply mechanistic insights to clinical application and to improve patients’ quality of life”

 

Note 2: The term ‘the Hyland model’ was coined by Dr Tony Davies, lead physician in Pain Management at Plymouth, who recognised the significance of Michael Hyland’s theoretical ideas to clinical practice and invited Hyland to collaborate with him and his colleagues in developing an intervention based on those theoretical ideas.  The term ‘Body Reprogramming’ is the name given to interventions based on the Hyland model.