"Shame, Psychology and ME": slides for presentation by Cheston, Richard; Cheston, Katharine

https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/13780159

Shame, Psychology and ME
Cheston, Richard; Cheston, Katharine

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Professor of Dementia Research Richard Cheston Richard.Cheston@uwe.ac.uk
Professor in Mental Health (Dementia Care)

Katharine Cheston



Abstract

In 2008, when she was 15, Katharine Cheston became ill with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or ME. Over the next decade and more Katharine, and ourselves as a family, encountered many different psychological ideas and therapies, often being offered by non-psychologists. One such belief system involves the constuction of ME as a psychiatric illness that is perpetuated by false illness beliefs and the avoidance of exercise.

This session is a personal reflection on this process, the role that shame played in our lives and the wider dearth of appropriate services for people with ME.

Presentation Conference Type Presentation / Talk
Conference Name Psychological Sciences Research Group meeting
Start Date Feb 20, 2025
End Date Feb 20, 2025
Deposit Date Feb 20, 2025
Publicly Available Date Feb 25, 2025
Peer Reviewed Not Peer Reviewed
Keywords ME, Shame, Graded exercise therapy, CFS, CBT
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/13780159
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:


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CHSS School of Social Sciences
Centre for Health and Clinical Research

• Psychological Sciences Research Group

Health and wellbeing

 

Unfortunately, that resonates well with my experience. I’ve gone to great lengths to try and explain to my GP that my thoughts and emotions are reasonable and proportional, and that they do not cause my symptoms. The trauma of being treated as someone who doesn’t know themselves and their own thoughts is still haunting me today.

Luckily, I have a fantastic therapist that was able to write them a letter the very clearly stated that my head is more than fine.

I can’t imagine going through that at 15. it would have completely broken me and scarred me for life. I feel so sorry for her and everyone that has experienced the same. And I’m glad that it seems like her parents understand.

 

You should probably report this in their feedback survey if you’ve got the time and capacity. Probably just give them the entire presentation!

 

And even if somehow it doesn’t cause harm (illness-wise) in the language of physical assaults or situations then it causes however many years or a lifetime of putting someone in a hell (which isn’t ok to do to someone and someone then weaponising labels in the hope such hell will make them true is even more dystopian) and in the language of what you hear in courts: lost years, opportunities, defamation of reputation, pain and suffering and ‘hurt feelings’

none of those things are ok to impose on someone and they don’t require ownership or any personality type of the receiver to be wrong, inappropriate and dangerous unkind things to do. The blame and description should also be firmly on the doer of these things as the subject rather than all rephrased as about the object and if damaged then pathological terms infer it’s something in them to be fixed - who would think this was ok to put people into such hell. And to do so for many years is a loss of life in itself.

But also the sheer darkness of realising people can do this to another human and be callously indifferent when they see what it does by denying or deluding themselves their actions wouldn’t be awful for anyone including if they were trapped into said dystopia themselves.