Ī number of researchers who promote the biopsychosocial model of ME/CFS have been described as gaslighting ME/CFS patients and intimidating ME/CFS advocates, and research has shown that health professionals routinely suggest or provide inappropriate and harmful treatments, wrongly suggest that a patient's ME/CFS symptoms result only from psychological factors or from a mental health condition such as depression, anxiety, or somatization, or treat patients as if their symptoms are in some way "all in their head"-regardless of the symptoms or history that the patient has. In 2015, several doctors publicly called for the medical community to apologize to ME/CFS patients for their decades of poor treatment, including José Montoya, who was then a specialist doctor and researcher at Stanford University, and Charles Shepherd, medical director of the ME Association, who is also a doctor with ME.ĭr Sarah Myhill has a long-standing petition calling on the UK government to carry out an inquiry into the medical abuse of M.E. Forced treatments may include exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy (if patients can still speak), or behavioral approaches like removing disability aids and leaving food out of reach to "motivate" patients to over-exert in order to eat. The mental illness diagnosis can be used to claim patients are unable to make their own healthcare decisions or are not able to make decisions in their own best interests, which allows doctors to determine their treatment for them. ME/CFS is not classified as a psychological disorder, so patients typically have this diagnosis removed and are misdiagnosed with a psychiatric diagnosis that includes physical symptoms instead, e.g., bodily distress disorder, functional somatic syndrome, somitization or conversion disorder, or in the case of children, the unrecognised diagnosis of pervasive refusal syndrome. just a few months after being released, and Karina Hansen, who was later found to have been illegally detained. Treatments in psychiatric units include Sophia Mirza, who died of M.E. Patients known to have been subjected to inappropriate forced Concerns over forced treatment of severely ill ME patients has led to some charities to produce advise for patients and carers about how to avoid unnecessary and harmful forced psychiatric admission. The belief of some health professionals that ME/CFS is entirely or partly psychological/behavioral in nature has led to some patients, including children, being forcibly admitted to locked psychiatric units in order to force them to participate in treatment that had had previously declined. Some parents of severely ill children with ME/CFS found themselves accused of medical neglect or Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy when they declined potentially harmful medical treatment, or the children were labelled as having school phobia rather than a genuine illness when doctors or social workers denied the reality of their illness. Some carers of severely ill ME/CFS patients have been blamed for "encouraging" patients to remain sick by providing essential care, and told to stop essential care. Some nurses had become totally convinced that the psychological and behavioral treatment would work, and that patients were well enough to be able to follow it, that they appeared to lose sight of the fact they were part of a clinical trial to determine if the treatments worked. Some health professionals, including doctors, have stated that they believe ME/CFS is a behavioral disorder, and in one unsuccessful clinical trial of psychological therapy for severely ill patients, some nurses blamed patients when the treatment involving behavioral change failed, claiming they were "bastards" who just "don't want to get better". Perkins and Jason, Long COVID and Gaslighting, Psychology Today Blaming patients and carers We also know that women and people of color receive poorer quality care. These types of treatments might be appropriate for those with a Major Depressive Disorder, but patients with long COVID, as well as ME/CFS, may be being gaslit, and these insensitive and harmful interventions can produce irrevocable harm. In a patronizing style, patients are sometimes told they will feel better taking anti-depressants or just exercising. Healthcare professionals might say they are sorry that "you feel" or "you believe" that there is something wrong, but then are quick to inform the patient that their physical exam or blood work has come out normal.
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