Thesis Distress and coping in ME/CFS: Understanding the role of perfectionism and self-compassion, 2022, Houston

[Dolphin]

Source: University of Sheffield
Date: September 20, 2022; online September 20, 2023
UrL: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/31310/

https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/31310/1/Alex Houston DClinPsy Thesis 190217932 Redacted Version.pdf

Distress and coping in ME/CFS: Understanding the role of perfectionism and self-compassion ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Alexandra Leigh Houston - Clinical and Applied Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, The University of Sheffield

Abstract

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a complicated longterm illness with symptoms that often restrict everyday activities and reduce quality of life. People with ME/CFS have a greater risk of experiencing mental health difficulties, including anxiety and depression. There is a lack of agreement on what causes ME/CFS and effective treatments. Therefore, it is important to find adaptive (i.e., helpful) ways of coping with this illness, in order to reduce mental health difficulties experienced. Additionally, research suggests traits like perfectionism and self-compassion (i.e., treating oneself with kindness) may affect coping and mental health for people with chronic illnesses. In ME/CFS, high levels of perfectionism are reported, with theories suggesting that perfectionism worsens coping and mental health difficulties. Self-compassion is linked to better coping and mental health in other illnesses. However, people who score highly on perfectionism struggle to treat themselves with kindness when faced with a past experience of perceived failure.

Firstly, this thesis investigated how different ways of coping relate to psychological distress (e.g., depression and anxiety) in ME/CFS. Section I includes a meta-analysis study which summarised past research looking into the relationships between different types of coping strategies and psychological distress in ME/CFS. Findings showed that using adaptive emotion-focused coping strategies were associated with lower levels of psychological distress. Adaptive emotionfocused coping strategies refer to changing one's emotional response to a stressful situation in a positive way, such as accepting life is now different from how it was pre-illness and coming to terms with this change. This result suggested that adaptive emotion-focused strategies may be helpful in managing mental health difficulties for people with ME/CFS. Study limitations are discussed when interpreting the results.

Section II includes a study that investigated whether asking individuals to respond selfcompassionately to past experiences of perceived failure increases self-compassion, and if perfectionism influences how able someone is to be self-compassionate. Participants with selfreported ME/CFS completed questionnaires measuring key factors including self-compassion, perfectionism and mental health difficulties in an online survey. Participants then completed a task where they recalled a past experience of perceived failure before being either prompted to write about the event while trying to be kind to themselves (the self-compassion group) or asked to recall more facts about the event (the control group). A self-compassion questionnaire was completed again after the task.

Findings showed that self-compassion was associated with lower levels of perfectionism, depression and anxiety, and higher confidence in their ability to cope with having ME/CFS. A significant increase in momentary self-compassion after the task was found in the self-compassion group only. Perfectionism did not influence the effectiveness of the self-compassion prompting task. These findings suggest that in ME/CFS, higher levels of self-compassion are associated with better coping and mental wellbeing, and that self-compassion can be momentarily increased by asking people to write self-compassionately about past experiences of perceived failure. As there is little research in this area, more studies are needed to explore whether compassion-focused strategies are helpful in lessening distress for people with ME/CFS.

 

[duncan]

Sometimes I feel sorry for these kids.

They seem to be trying so hard.

I think she used the word "self-compassion" somehow 17 times in just the title and 4 paragraphs above. That should count for something.

 

[Kitty]

They seem to be trying so hard.

They're probably just responding to the way they're taught.

A person with any insight at all would ask them to consider the difference between perfectionism and doing a thing in the perfectly ordinary (and maybe even slapdash) way the respondent was used to pre-illness.

But this is a psychology course, and insight would mess up the statistics.

 

[rvallee]

It's really worrying that it takes this little effort to get a PhD in psychology. Might explain a lot, actually. But the student isn't to blame here, they were clearly taught so wrong and enabled by professors who can't seem to do any better themselves that they had no chance to begin with.

At this point I'm thinking that AI will probably revolutionize psychology just as much as medicine, if not more. Because our current level of understanding is so poor that it will take AIs very little effort to do better. This is all performative, there is no depth or substance at all to this. And so damn repetitive and boring.

For sure AIs won't care much about an entire field built on "here's a bunch of cheap correlations and here's our opinion about it".

 

[Sly Saint]

and that self-compassion can be momentarily increased by asking people to write self-compassionately about past experiences of perceived failure.

..................particularly if a cup of tea and a biscuit are on offer afterwards.

 

[Arnie Pye]

Does anyone know the origin of the idea that ME is associated with perfectionism in some way? Because I've seen it mentioned often in the years I've been reading about ME, and I obviously don't fit in the mould because I have no perfectionist traits at all.

 

[Hutan]

The literature on perfectionism in ME/CFS is weak and unconvincing, as far as the idea that perfectionism is more common in ME/CFS goes. It's another one of those ideas that BPS people so desperately want to be true but which is not evidence-based.

Check out some of the the threads tagged with 'perfectionism' for more discussion on this e.g. this one
A person-centred test of multidimensional perfectionism and health in people with chronic fatigue syndrome versus healthy controls, 2021, Sirois et al

 

[Solstice]

The literature on perfectionism in ME/CFS is weak and unconvincing, as far as the idea that perfectionism is more common in ME/CFS goes. It's another one of those ideas that BPS people so desperately want to be true but which is not evidence-based.

Check out some of the the threads tagged with 'perfectionism' for more discussion on this e.g. this one
A person-centred test of multidimensional perfectionism and health in people with chronic fatigue syndrome versus healthy controls, 2021, Sirois et al

I think it's something they tell patients to make them feel good about themselves. When I entered the course of CBT/GET in NL I got told I had perfectionist traits and that that was holding me back. Which in fact did make me think better about myself for a short while. I was a lazy sob as a student but heee, if the psychologist says so....

There were all sorts of lazy stereotypes flung in. The worst one I heard was from one of the people "managing" our group, she was sort of a caretaker of the place we were put. It was overtly racist and was about why they rarely had any black participants there. It wasn't because we were in the whitest part of an already very white country. It was because "they" were more laidback so it didn't affect them that much.

Wish I could say that she really stood out with that kind of stereotyping and to the credit of the others they never were that overtly racist, but there were just so so many lazy stereotypes thrown around.

 

[Solstice]

It's really worrying that it takes this little effort to get a PhD in psychology. Might explain a lot, actually. But the student isn't to blame here, they were clearly taught so wrong and enabled by professors who can't seem to do any better themselves that they had no chance to begin with.

At this point I'm thinking that AI will probably revolutionize psychology just as much as medicine, if not more. Because our current level of understanding is so poor that it will take AIs very little effort to do better. This is all performative, there is no depth or substance at all to this. And so damn repetitive and boring.

For sure AIs won't care much about an entire field built on "here's a bunch of cheap correlations and here's our opinion about it".

It's par for the course really. I know people that got a PhD in psychology and even they admit it's all about finding labels for character trait and that you could basically label anyone with something. Some of her professors even admitted so. Psychology as a profession has exploded somewhat in the Netherlands and with that comes the demand for more patients. How do you get more patients? By inventing bullcrap you can treat.

 

[Sean]

The empire must keep expanding!

 

[bobbler]

Does anyone know the origin of the idea that ME is associated with perfectionism in some way? Because I've seen it mentioned often in the years I've been reading about ME, and I obviously don't fit in the mould because I have no perfectionist traits at all.

I think it’s just a misogyny trope (and don’t get confused that women can’t be the worst misogynists to other women) that goes with certain people getting into certain positions always try and throw.

I don’t think they even try to explain why it’s not nonsensical because they are bigots preaching to those open to bigotry at a certain level (as long as they don’t like someone with ME enough sadly most are happy to say bad things of others when it’s in terms they are allowed to get away with socially) who wouldn’t therefore be looking to ask questions on it when they hear what they want to hear as confirmation bias. It’s got there by ad populous voting not by sense or logic or it being a useful term.

perfectionism has by real psychology been outed as both a fake concept and not a personality trait, even one that’s insignificant - they don’t even define it in an internally consistent way because it’s a term used ‘in the eye/mind of the accuser’ to mean something undermining, devisive and with an agenda that varies between each person and occasion. Because it’s basically just a belittle [other] women phrase. There used to be only pseudoscience literature such a term would get into

but certain types of men and women do love to sling it at certain others as a diss. It’s a common troping loved by teaching professions and laypersons and nothing to do with medicine or psych any more more than you get the same normal distribution of types going into everywhere even if said profession should be fishing them out for safety reasons.

where it crossed the line into charading as anything else would have come with the same people I assume (pseudo scientists) being ‘let into’ subjects and I’d look first at any female heavy diseases that render said women socially vulnerable and stigmatised to not be seen or able to refute or where speaking for or over them about who they are was allowed first. You know where few people really are gonna care or stand up gif their rights because too good s job has been done of suggesting they are very weird and not to be heard. Mainly I can think of CFS and eating disorder, young women who might be anxious type thing ‘experts’ (whatever the patients themselves actually had), there may be a few others allowing as much ‘fair game’ of where other women ‘go wrong’ and just work too hard or are too bothered about external or other nonsense stuff hidden under all of what is really meant.

I can imagine it’s been used for centuries but where it got pretended to be more than a cod psych if you said it I’m guessing only under those unsupervised and uncritiqued rocks. Imagine the reputation of someone if they’d tried to push it into heart disease for middle aged men first pretending it was a serious concept. It needed a soft target.

When I see the term perfectionist or hear it, as someone with a scientific psychology degree it only confirms to me that the writer or speaker of it is a misogynist or happy to be part of the chain implementing that at certain women.

 

[bobbler]

I’m divided on what to think of this without a better read through when I feel more on it. Because the word perfectionism immediately makes me think urgggh, but then I can’t work out if there is ‘more to this’ with the self-compassion perhaps starting to note that maybe it isn’t ‘perfectionism’ but ‘external impacts’ or ‘pressures’ or ‘not giving leeway others expect and are entitled to’ etc others are trying to hide as ‘internally perceived’ when the problem is them ‘being done to’ when they shouldn’t. And those who do that like to pretend it was encouraged or deserved but often no it wasn’t ‘asked for’ in such uncertain terms.

And I guess then the issue is does this go suitably far in laying the cause at the right concept, door, issue eg stigma and maltreatment (which ironically could have been invited by misinformation)

or is it just a soft soap to still try and sell perfectionism and say the cure is be kind to yourself?

 

[Kitty]

is it just a soft soap to still try and sell perfectionism and say the cure is be kind to yourself?

It reads to me like an honest attempt to compare studies of coping strategies. The trouble is that it's based on assumptions that aren't even questioned, on references that appear to be baloney of the first order in some cases, and on an online survey of people with self reported ME.

It's an awfully long winded way to point out that self care tends to improve people's wellbeing, especially when they probably knew this already.

 

[Evergreen]

IThe worst one I heard was from one of the people "managing" our group, she was sort of a caretaker of the place we were put. It was overtly racist and was about why they rarely had any black participants there. It wasn't because we were in the whitest part of an already very white country. It was because "they" were more laidback so it didn't affect them that much.

What a horrific thing for that person to say. Horrible that people with ME/CFS who aren't white face that kind of racism on top of all that comes with being ill. And demonstrates the harm that comes from these personality stereotypes that many clinicians like to peddle about people with ME/CFS.

 

[Solstice]

What a horrific thing for that person to say. Horrible that people with ME/CFS who aren't white face that kind of racism on top of all that comes with being ill. And demonstrates the harm that comes from these personality stereotypes that many clinicians like to peddle about people with ME/CFS.

True, though I'd consider it a kindness not to be subjected to their treatment scheme. The woman was sort of in charge of the household, she wasn't involved in any of the therapy btw. But the more I think about it the more bonkers stuff comes up from my time there from basically everyone involved in any capacity. Going to the sauna or getting to lie on a sunbed was meant as a treat for a job well done for example(good doggy), people always just seemed to return really knackered though. I didn't think much of it then, I didn't think much full stop. But in hindsight there's a plethora of reasons why it could be considered a bad idea.