'Controversies and Cock-ups in ME research: The Role of Human Failings' - Prof Brian Hughes to speak at Sheffield ME & Fibro Group Conference

[Theresa]

I haven't been able to watch it apart from the beginning, but I don't think @Brian Hughes is correct to say PACE was based on a psychiatric model, there wasn't a single model but 4 different models being tested, fear avoidance and deconditioning were two separate models as was adaptive pacing and they were all models of treatment rather than of the illness as a whole, which was viewed as being partially perpetuated by psychosocial factors.

 

[Barry]

Brian was explaining about the difference between genuine biopsychosocial models and the fear avoidance and deconditioning model used for ME, which he said was not a BPS model, but a psychiatric model.

That is an interesting insight.

 

[NelliePledge]

That is an interesting insight.

Presumably this is why Ellen Goudsmit doesn’t like people using BPS as a negative term when we really just mean the CFS cabal.

 

[Trish]

I haven't been able to watch it apart from the beginning, but I don't think @Brian Hughes is correct to say PACE was based on a psychiatric model, there wasn't a single model but 4 different models being tested, fear avoidance and deconditioning were two separate models as was adaptive pacing and they were all models of treatment rather than of the illness as a whole, which was viewed as being partially perpetuated by psychosocial factors.

I may have accidentally misrepresented what Brian said.

My impression was that he was saying that the 'fear avoidance' model is a psychiatric model. My understanding is that the PACE researchers and others of what we loosely call the BPS group think behavioural treatments are appropriate for ME for all sorts of reasons (fear avoidance, deconditioning etc).

The fact that they think it is curable with behavioural treatments, and in PACE were prepared to distort the results in order to claim cures from the two behaviourally based treatments, suggests to me that the believe in a psychiatric model.

 

[rvallee]

Presumably this is why Ellen Goudsmit doesn’t like people using BPS as a negative term when we really just mean the CFS cabal.

I definitely agree that a competent BPS model would be beneficial. If it were to exist.

As it is practiced, it is simply not competent. It is far too often not even basically ethical. Rather it serves as a slippery slope for magical thinking and ideological brigades. Even worse, it is fundamentally deceitful, saying one thing publicly and a whole other thing in private.

And when you look at the thought leaders, they pretty much all favor the incompetent neo-Freudian one. So good idea, absolutely catastrophically horrible implementation. And for this it needs to be taken behind the shed, shot twice, buried, smoked, salted, nuked from orbit and sprinkled with botulism.

Unfortunately it is necessary to judge things by their worst. A friendly neighbour who brings you cakes sometimes doesn't really add up if they are also a serial killer. The serial killer party massively outweighs the occasional free cake.