LongCovid & ME/CFS conference project. community-driven. independent. global.
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ALT The role of psychological factors in the development and course of Long Covid (LC) and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chro-nic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) remains a subject of controver-sial debate. We argue that psychologizing LC and ME/CFS car-ries significant risks: it leads to potentially harmful therapies, invalidates the patients' experience of illness, hinders effective interventions such as pacing, diverts focus from necessary phy-sical diagnostics and treatment, disadvantages patients in medical assessments, and places a considerable additional burden on the families of affected children or other relatives. We show that many of the arguments presented for a psycho-logical contribution are nonspecific or insufficiently supported by empirical evidence. Our essay therefore advocates for extreme caution in attributing psychological factors to these conditions, in the interest of a specific, evidence-based, and patient-centered psychiatry and psychotherapy.
ALT The role of psychological factors in the development and course of Long Covid (LC) and Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chro-nic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) remains a subject of controver-sial debate. We argue that psychologizing LC and ME/CFS car-ries significant risks: it leads to potentially harmful therapies, invalidates the patients' experience of illness, hinders effective interventions such as pacing, diverts focus from necessary phy-sical diagnostics and treatment, disadvantages patients in medical assessments, and places a considerable additional burden on the families of affected children or other relatives. We show that many of the arguments presented for a psycho-logical contribution are nonspecific or insufficiently supported by empirical evidence. Our essay therefore advocates for extreme caution in attributing psychological factors to these conditions, in the interest of a specific, evidence-based, and patient-centered psychiatry and psychotherapy.
ALT DecodeME: The Results announcement post. The graphic has a blue background with a DNA helix. In the centre of the graphic it says ‘We have released our initial DNA results! We have discovered that your genes contribute to your chances of developing ME/CFS.’ At the bottom left of the graphic is an image of a research paper.