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family intervention for chronic fatigue syndrome

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Don't ask me what the £$*+ this is, but @Tom Kindlon posted it in another forum! (Saving you the trouble, Tom. :)) It's a job ad from Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust to assist Professors Alison Wearden and Christine Barrowclough. It sounds like psychoquackery.

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AIA177/research-assistant/

Research Assistant

School of Psychological Sciences

The University of Manchester -The Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences

Closing date : 05/02/2014

Reference : M&HS-04069

Faculty / Organisational unit : Medical & Human Sciences

School / Directorate : School of Psychological Sciences

Employment type : Fixed Term

Duration : 4 months

Location : Oxford Road, Manchester

Salary : £25,013 to £28,972 per annum

Hours per week : Full time

The purpose of this post, which is funded by Research Capability Funding
from Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust, is to assist Professors
Alison Wearden and Christine Barrowclough in the preparation of a grant
application to fund a feasibility study of a family intervention for chronic
fatigue syndrome.

The post is for 4 months in the first instance, but with the possibility of
extension subject to further funding. Under the direction of Professors
Wearden and Barrowclough, you will assemble the team for the application,
including patient and public co-applicants, produce drafts of the
application and revise it following review, work with the School’s Research
Business Manager to cost the application and carry out associated
administrative tasks. There will also be the opportunity to get involved in
the analysis and write up for publication of existing data. We are looking
for an enthusiastic and self-starting Psychology graduate educated to at
least Masters level, with excellent writing skills and experience of writing
applications for funding. Ability to network and liaise with members of
other professions, with patients and the public, is essential. Prior
knowledge of chronic fatigue syndrome or family interventions, or the
development and design of randomised controlled trials would be highly
desirable.

Interviews will take place in mid February and we would hope that the
successful candidate would take up the post as soon as possible thereafter.

Please note that if you do not have permission to work in the UK, the
University of Manchester will not be able to obtain a Certificate of
Sponsorship for you to take up this position.

Informal enquiries

Informal enquiries can be made to Alison Wearden

Email: <mailto:alison.wearden@manchester.ac.uk>
alison.wearden@manchester.ac.uk

Tel: 0161 275 2684

The University of Manchester values a diverse workforce and welcomes
applications from all sections of the community.

Further particulars

Further particulars including job description and person specification are
available on the University of Manchester website - click on the 'Apply'
button below to find out more.

Click here for
<http://www.jobs.ac.uk/enhanced/employer/the-university-of-manchester/>
Employer Profile

<https://www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/displayjob.aspx?jobid=7351>
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
Things are getting scarier by the minute in your part of the world! :eek:

Or perhaps I'm wrong in thinking they are going to try to use psychological manipulation on your families as well now...?
 

Desdinova

Senior Member
Messages
276
Location
USA
:eek:Just when you think they can't get any sicker. now they bring the family in and will use them as a tool against those that are sick. But Honey don't you want to get better.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
blame the victim, divide and conquer...

note it's not seemingly a trial on beneficial help of support for those with this illness, it is INTERVENTION
big bloody difference

we are well on the route to concentration camps, people simply cannot see the mentality and scope, how the dominoes fall, how the "road to hell is paved with good intentions"
is it just because I've actually had to deal with manipulative sociopaths and actual psychopaths, and love history and it's lessons, or are so many folk out (society) there really that damn dumb they can't see this coming?
swear its like folk having their head in the sand :(
Dis the NSA stuff, Agent Orange, etc not wake folk up enough? bleeeeeeeeeeeerg!
 

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
At first I thought the title of this thread was about someone's family doing an "intervention" on them (the kind where your family get together to have an aggressive chat with you about some major problem in your life). It sounds like this job ad is mostly about getting someone good at writing grant proposals to help bring home the bacon for their team and keep the coffers full.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Outcome measures. One of the big things wrong with psychobabble is the use of potentially biased and subjective outcome measures. I would suggest they use the 2 day CPET but I doubt they will, as the first thing it will probably do is demonstrate most of their patients do not have ME or strict CFS, but are misdiagnosed.

Post viral fatigue, which is what many of these patients will probably have, is about immune response, immune cells, cytokines etc. The only family intervention worth a damn is supporting the patient till they recover normally. Somehow I doubt that is what they intend.

For ME, all this might do is alienate patients, and might turn a patient with no psychiatric issues into one with serious psychiatric issues. Way to go!

For misdiagnosed depression I wonder if this kind of thing has already been studied.

Outcome measures and cohorts matter.
 

Snowdrop

Rebel without a biscuit
Messages
2,933
What do we need: Educating everyone as to what ME is.

When do we need it: NOW is almost not soon enough.
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
They forgot to add organise infection testing, tcell lymphocyte testing, nk function testing and possible 2 day exercise function test. Also no mention of access to antivirals or antibiotics as well as immune treatments like immunoglobulins and ampligen. Maybe they will advertise the position for an immunologist/infectious disease specialist later:bang-head::bang-head::bang-head::bang-head:
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Things are getting scarier by the minute in your part of the world! :eek:

Or perhaps I'm wrong in thinking they are going to try to use psychological manipulation on your families as well now...?

I'm worried that it might include Munchausen's-by-Proxy type diagnoses and taking children away from their parents. Definitely needs watching.

Imagine talking about family intervention for...cancer, cystic fibrosis, measles...
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Outcome measures. One of the big things wrong with psychobabble is the use of potentially biased and subjective outcome measures. I would suggest they use the 2 day CPET but I doubt they will, as the first thing it will probably do is demonstrate most of their patients do not have ME or strict CFS, but are misdiagnosed.

With the psychological studies it's almost as if they didn't want to look too hard, for fear of finding something that doesn't agree with their theories.
 

user9876

Senior Member
Messages
4,556
I'm worried that it might include Munchausen's-by-Proxy type diagnoses and taking children away from their parents. Definitely needs watching.

Imagine talking about family intervention for...cancer, cystic fibrosis, measles...

There have been cases where doctors have accused parents of Munchausen's-by-Proxy or FII as its now called where the child has cancer but there is a failure to diagnose by the doctors. Instead they waste time looking at FII.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
stealing kids is Big Business in Britain now, they privatized the children's home care system
so, the companies then bought up the expert witnesses and lawyers involved, so it's almost impossible to win without concrete evidence
and then they can pimp the kids out to elite perverts because it's all kept secret, secret courts...

let's just say my thoughts on our "system" preferentiate towards a nickel iron meteorite....
 

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Talking about family interventions, it would be nice for the wider medical family to step in and explain to their psychiatry cousin that enough is enough, time to embrace science more sincerely.

1955. That is when we needed it. That is when the findings and technology existed to do stuff. 59 years of ignorance is what we got instead.

I have been wondering how many of the clues to the pathophysiology and etiology, that have been hinted at over the recent years, could have been discovered or explored many years or even decades earlier with the right funding direction. Obviously the technology has improved greatly in the past few decades, so perhaps that has been missing too.

With the psychological studies it's almost as if they didn't want to look too hard, for fear of finding something that doesn't agree with their theories.

Yeah, just look at psychological researchers in the UK, who have been pushing the cognitive behavioural model which supposedly treats CFS successfully with CBT/GET, leading to improvements or 'recovery' of health and function. Except despite all the rosy claims about increasing activity and resuming normal lives, these researchers seem to have an aversion or even an aggressive dislike of objective outcome measures. Is it a mere coincidence that the limited available objective evidence just happens to debunk their claims (rhetorical question of course!)?
 
Messages
15,786
Things are getting scarier by the minute in your part of the world! :eek:

Or perhaps I'm wrong in thinking they are going to try to use psychological manipulation on your families as well now...?
Some groups have been advocating cutting off family support for decades. They've never been able to get enough people to listen to them for that approach to get widely disseminated.

Their rather nasty argument is that we stay sick because our (well-meaning) loved ones take care of us too much. The solution is to withhold physical support, such as getting us food or helping us get to the bathroom. These sorts of abuses have certainly occurred before, but I've only heard of it being done deliberately in hospital settings.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Some groups have been advocating cutting off family support for decades. They've never been able to get enough people to listen to them for that approach to get widely disseminated.

Their rather nasty argument is that we stay sick because our (well-meaning) loved ones take care of us too much. The solution is to withhold physical support, such as getting us food or helping us get to the bathroom. These sorts of abuses have certainly occurred before, but I've only heard of it being done deliberately in hospital settings.

Studies have found that on average people whose illness is more severe get more support.

Psychoquacks have adopted the bizarre, perverse viewpoint that it is the support making/keeping the sufferers ill, rather than the logical and obvious conclusion that if you are more ill you need - and hopefully get - more support!

I know of a severely-affected person in another forum, with whom I have been in communication, who was persuaded by a psychoquack to move into a flat away from the support of her husband on the grounds that his support was making her too dependent. Pretty-well everyone else was horrified, but she is so desperate that she is prepared to try anything.

Did it work? Or did she get worse? Your best guess will be right.

All the extra hassle involved in ending the lease on the flat and moving back home didn't help either...
 

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
Psychoquacks have adopted the bizarre, perverse viewpoint that it is the support making/keeping the sufferers ill, rather than the logical and obvious conclusion that if you are more ill you need - and hopefully get - more support

They always go with the misanthropic patronizing interpretation, in good Freudian tradition.
 

globalpilot

Senior Member
Messages
626
Location
Ontario
Studies have found that on average people whose illness is more severe get more support.

Psychoquacks have adopted the bizarre, perverse viewpoint that it is the support making/keeping the sufferers ill, rather than the logical and obvious conclusion that if you are more ill you need - and hopefully get - more support!

I know of a severely-affected person in another forum, with whom I have been in communication, who was persuaded by a psychoquack to move into a flat away from the support of her husband on the grounds that his support was making her too dependent. Pretty-well everyone else was horrified, but she is so desperate that she is prepared to try anything.

Did it work? Or did she get worse? Your best guess will be right.

All the extra hassle involved in ending the lease on the flat and moving back home didn't help either...

Wow, is that ever sad and unfortunate. I'm glad she moved back home and I'm sure she has a new opinion of the psych doctor.

I know I deteriorate when my loved one is away, not improve and he notices it as well.