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ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

1 🇳🇴) In this Norwegian study, therapists using a psychosomatic approach to ME/CFS expressed "concern about how current approaches might be viewed if future research were to establish a treatable biological dysfunction."

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Wanda Monroe
@wandamocats.bsky.social

Doctors are worried about their reputation without doing anything to ensure their reputation is good. No ethical code. The way they treat certain groups of patients is disgusting. ME/CFS & patients with disabilities & chronic painful diseases are treated like shit. They've made medical care unsafe.

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

2) The study interviewed 16 healthcare professionals who take a 'psychologically and behaviourally informed approach' and believe that this helps patients recover from ME/CFS. The interviews give insight into their experience, how they view patients and their approach.

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

3) The paper highlights several teams such as that ME/CFS patients often end up in no-man's-land, that it's important to validate their experiences, build trust and offer a potential explanation for their symptoms in terms of stress and the body's alarms systems.

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

4) But the interesting thing about the paper is that it also includes some reflection from these therapists: what if we're wrong? We don't see that very often because being confident and persuasive is part of the treatment approach towards recovery.

ME/CFS Science
@mecfsscience.org

5) Some expressed residual diagnostic uncertainty (perhaps something was overlooked) or concern that future research might show a biomedical abnormality "with little or no role for the processes they currently targeted."

SWA
@swalexander.bsky.social

This paper revisits psychological and behavioural approaches to ME/CFS without convincing evidence that they lead to recovery. Reframing these approaches does not address their evidentiary limitations or the physical suffering patients experience.