Clinical support and encouragement versus manipulation (includes motivational interviewing)

I didn't find anything overtly troubling in that linked document on a skim through. Probably mainly because unlike with us, they're not trying to persuade the patients they don't have a significant chronic illness - quite the opposite!

I found it manipulative. And the references to "empathy" made me think that people were being trained to "fake it" with their patients.
 
I don't like how they write it should not be a manipulative relationship, because as a clinician the goal is after all to coax the patient into the "correct" behavior. To me this feels manipulative, even if one is supposed to listen, find obtainable goals together with the patient that the patient feels are important and so on. As long as certain researchers and clinicians sees ME/CFS as a behavior issue, I think it would be easy to nod along to the "treatment should be collaborative" idea since approaches like the motivational interview is already agreed upon.

Today forskning.no wrote about the "Anomalies" paper, I'm surprised it took this long. The person writing it has been a defender of the BPS paradigm and written quite a few pieces on the anti-science ME patients. Not surprisingly the omitted roundtable event is not questioned, and no mention of the wide support by ME organisations (though in fairness the replies to the paper may not have been published at the time of writing. It is commented on that the Norwegian ME Association is positive).

They even got comments from Trudie Chalder, I don't know why that surprised me.

Researchers criticize offer to UK ME patients


The whole ‘subject/school’ of behavioural ‘psychology’ is ONLY about the idea of making others do things differently by using various different levels of coercion. Punishment and reward and aversion like electric shocks being its basis.

I’m surprised if isn’t outlawed really when you think about what it involves as a belief and actions but it’s necessary, if studied by the opposite of this type of people (ie not people who believe doing this to others is normal behaviour), because it is so innate in some personality types as a go to they think it’s a good idea.

The cognitive part being added is actually almost more manipulative when you think about it.

so for anything that comes from this school to kid itself that isn’t fundamentally purely what it is at it’s core is actually terrifying delusion to me.

and, partly because almost certainly the ‘expert’ might be using an incorrect and opposite understanding of ME to what is correct, but also because of some of the pretty weird approaches this starts to be - this (the Leeds one) gets really manipulative and strange and ‘off course’ about half way through - it isn’t even the same ‘up front and honest’ or ‘helping someone tackle it head on’ CBT that was actually first developed and got its reputation for being successful eg in things like phobias.

it’s just a twisted thing that instead of being good CBT based on a sound model due to those doing it genuinely being curious and interested (because in phobia eg the issue is ‘in the patient’ as far as if the listener doesn’t hear what they describe and get that fear and what’s behind it they don’t know what they are treating) it’s just plain old manipulation mixed with thicko paternalism assuming whatever someone describes is deluded.

I could almost cry as that smell of bringing up functional issues such as for ME being able to acces services or do things that require more energy or function than they have ‘standing in peoples way’ comes up and us tackled like it’s the patients responsibility rather than something THE helper should be sorting. That’s just cruel gaslighting.
 
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