Sweden: Webinar: Gunnar Olsson on ACT for ME, hosted by Bragée ME Center

[mango]

Gunnar Olsson
Fatigue, exhaustion, ME and ACT
About psychology, energy and mitochondria - a new holistic view

Associate Professor Gunnar Olsson gives an inspiring lecture on a holistic view of ME/CFS from CBT and ACT to mitochondria and electrons, oxidative stress and treatments based on this.

This webinar (in Swedish) took place on 14 April 2021, and the recording has now been published. It's part of a series of free so called educational seminars presented by Bragée ME-center.

Olsson is a well-known BPS proponent, and his ACT for ME method is known for being very heavily influenced by CBT/GET.

Gunnar Olsson
Trötthet, utmattning, ME och ACT
Om psykologi, energi och mitokondrier - en ny helhetsbild.
https://www.bragee.se/utbildning-210414-act-ros-me

Earlier threads about some of Olsson's ME studies here, here, here, here and here.

(I haven't been able to watch the webinar yet. Not looking forward to it, to be honest, but I feel that it's really important to be aware of what kind of educational material on ME Bragée Clinics are producing and distributing.)

 

[mango]

I'm unable to listen properly because of PEM, but I've listened with half an ear to a few bits.

One thing that seriously caught my attention was something he said about 6 million SEK for ME research that went missing in 2012? (Approx £516 600 or $712 000 using today's conversion rates.) I will definitely be looking into that...

(4 min 12 sec)
In the autumn of 2012 I sat down with officials from the health and medical care administration [in Stockholm County] so that, actually to obtain more orders for pain treatment, one could use the rehabilitation guarantee [government stimulus money to help people with mild mental health issues get back to work] and stuff.

One of the officials says can you not use this model [of ACT] for treatment of ME/CFS? Um, of course, yes, I can do it if you give me a little bit of money. I got a lot of money. Unfortunately, they ended up in Karolinska Hospital's big black financial hole.

If we could have put them into a project grant, we could have done pretty great things. But then we started with ME anyway, and that was with this CBT method ACT.

Literal quote in Swedish:
"På hösten 2012 satt jag med tjänstemän från hälso- och sjukvårdsförvaltningen [i Stockholms län] för att, egentlgen för att skaffa mer beställningar för smärtbehandling, man kunde använda rehabiliteringsgarantin och grejer.

En av tjänstemännen säger kan du inte använda den här modellen [av ACT] för behandling utav ME/CFS? Öh, visst sa jag, bara jag får lite pengar så kan jag göra det. Jag fick mycket pengar. Tyvärr hamnade de rakt in i Karolinska sjukhusets stora svarta ekonomiska hål.

Hade man kunnat sätta dem på ett projektanslag så hade man kunnat göra ganska stordåd. Men då började vi i alla fall med ME, och det var då med den här KBT-metoden ACT."

When talking about ACT he said something that really surprised me, something that completely contradicts the info in his ACT for ME research project documents (see threads linked in my post above). He said "do not confuse ME with psychiatric illness" and "do not expose them to physical activity". Wow... I really really hope he genuinely means that. He said that they have realised that the focus of ACT for ME should be defusion. I wish he had expanded a lot more on that.

However, at the very end when he's talking about his planned oxidative stress/Q10 study and what outcome measures he has chosen, after mentioning the HPA axis he talks about collecting data from the anamnesis questionnaires, about onset and "illness history of severe stress in life, that's very common, from childhood abuse, difficult childhood, to accidents and other kinds of abuse, that is vastly common".



There was an awful lot of talk about psychological flexibility too (unhelpful avoidance behaviours, fears etc), referring to Martin Jonsjö's work and doctoral thesis, which Olsson supervised.

Looots of general talk about the citric acid cycle, oxidative stress,...

He said that Bragée has asked him to design an ACT program for them, which will start in 2021. 9 sessions with psychologists and "socionoms" (what's the English word for a person with a university degree in social work?). It wasn't clear to me if that will be offered only to the pain rehab patients or to ME patients as well.

Based on this talk, I couldn't help getting the impression that Olsson is someone who is really into his special interests, not really interested in ME per se, but happy to accept ME research grants to see if he can figure out a way to somehow apply his special interests to ME.

I hope someone else will be able to add a proper summary of the talk, this was just some of my random thoughts. Please feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong.

 

[cfsandmore]

Defusion is a pile of manure when it comes to treating ME. Personally, no matter how I tried to manipulate my thoughts if I'm too active PEM kicks my butt.

An idea of how Cognitive Defusion is used in ACT.

Counselors who teach cognitive defusion techniques to their clients would encourage them to reframe their thoughts to “I guess I’m only telling myself that I’m a loser” and “I’m only experiencing anxiety at this moment.” Rephrasing the thoughts this way helps people identify that they have a choice in what they think and that their feelings are a temporary experience.

Source: https://highfocuscenters.pyramidhealthcarepa.com/what-is-cognitive-defusion/

 

[Trish]

Rephrasing the thoughts this way helps people identify that they have a choice in what they think and that their feelings are a temporary experience.

Tell that to someone with intractable pain.
They have no idea.