1 🇳🇴) In this Norwegian study, therapists using a psychosomatic approach to ME/CFS expressed "concern about how current approaches might be viewed if future research were to establish a treatable biological dysfunction."
2) The study interviewed 16 healthcare professionals who take a 'psychologically and behaviourally informed approach' and believe that this helps patients recover from ME/CFS. The interviews give insight into their experience, how they view patients and their approach. 3) The paper highlights several teams such as that ME/CFS patients often end up in no-man's-land, that it's important to validate their experiences, build trust and offer a potential explanation for their symptoms in terms of stress and the body's alarms systems. 4) But the interesting thing about the paper is that it also includes some reflection from these therapists: what if we're wrong? We don't see that very often because being confident and persuasive is part of the treatment approach towards recovery. 5) Some expressed residual diagnostic uncertainty (perhaps something was overlooked) or concern that future research might show a biomedical abnormality "with little or no role for the processes they currently targeted." 6) Several clinicians also reported being criticised for not believing patients or for minimising their suffering, highlighting the moral and professional stakes involved. 7) The paper writes: "For clinicians, perceived risks extended beyond the therapeutic relationship to professional legitimacy, criticism from colleagues and the public, regulatory scrutiny, and possible legal repercussions." 8) Link to the paper: Bakken et al. 2026. Making recovery conceivable: perspectives from healthcare professionals using psychologically and behaviourally informed approaches to chronic fatigue syndrome.
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