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An Investigation into the Relationship Between ME(CFS) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
https://glyndwr.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_20qphvofps5v37f
I am asking diagnosed M.E patients to fill out this questionnaire, to find out if M.E sufferers are more likely to have OCD tendencies, than healthy people. By filling out this questionnaire does not mean to say that you have OCD. Everybody has OCD, but its level is different for everyone. Some people like to have all of the tins in the cupboard facing the same way, some people like to do tasks at certain times in the day. OCD can be a really debilitating illness to have for some people and to other people it could just be that they like to order their clothes in their wardrobe. Quite a bit of research has been done into M.E and OCD separately, but not together. Some of the research I have read suggests to me that there could be a link between OCD and M.E, but nobody has looked into it, until now.
Lucky us, having a undergraduate student let loose on a sensitive and easily misread area of medicine. What could possibly go wrong?
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
This psychology student must have been asleep in the OCD lecture, because the way she writes about it in the above excerpt shows she doesn't really have a clue about it.

If she's really interested in M.E. a good first step would be to change courses from psychology to medicine, then specialise in immunology or neurology.
 

Richard7

Senior Member
Messages
772
Location
Australia
"everybody has OCD"

presumably this is like everybody gets fatigue, or a bit down or ...

I know that when I studied chemistry we were told that nobody who was not considered safe alone in the lab would pass second year, maybe we need something similar for psychology students.
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
Depending on his intention, I don't think it's necessarily such a bad area of investigation...
I'd draw attention to this quote:
Everybody has OCD, but its level is different for everyone. Some people like to have all of the tins in the cupboard facing the same way, some people like to do tasks at certain times in the day.
Now, as an ME patient who has been (and remains to an extent) severely affected, I learned to do things at certain times of the day for certain periods of time, in order to get symptoms under control: it was a method of management in order to stop me doing things which made me more ill and had to be enforced pretty sharply in order to do so.

Reducing techniques to manage a severe illness and avoid highly unpleasant physical and symptomatic consequences to a simple act of potentially inappropriate behaviour is the agenda of everyone who has sought to minimise and obfuscate ME as a severe and disabling illness throughout the years. As such, I fail to see why this is likely to be different.
 
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charles shepherd

Senior Member
Messages
2,239
This study appears to be supported by MEA and A4ME.

Re MEA link:

We are constantly being approached by university students to help with various aspects of research projects

We were approached by this psychology student some time ago

And while we decided not to endorse the research, or to get involved in any way, we did agree to let her insert contact details of the MEA in case anyone filling in the questionnaire wanted a reliable source of information and support
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
I took a look at the start but I'm not sure I want to complete it. Does any part of the survey address whether there has been a change in these things since becoming ill?
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
I took a look at the start but I'm not sure I want to complete it. Does any part of the survey address whether there has been a change in these things since becoming ill?
Can't face it myself. But theoretically you could do the whole thing and then bail out on the last question and not send it in. Think of science, Sarah ;)
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
Heh. Okay ... but if I don't make it back I at least want something named after me.

Okay, the answer to my question is No. You get asked a couple of basics, like age and how long since diagnosis, then you get a bunch of standard "how do you feel about" Qs relating to the last month.

There you go, worldbackwards. Done my bit for science.
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
A little bit OCD? The student seems to be confusing the everyday slangy meaning OCD has been given with the life-consuming condition she claims to be studying.

This couldn't possibly be leading to the conclusion that M.E. patients' stubborn refusal to accept that they have a psychosomatic condition is based on their OCD tendencies could it? I mean it's not as if psychologists have ever had a preconcieved notion about M.E. and then done a "study" to prove it, and if the data doesn't fit, misrepresent it until it does. Even if that isn't the student's intention, some BPS psychoquack will make the link.

At my CFS self-help group there are 3 psychologists who are vociferous in their condemnation of how some of their colleagues have psychologised our physical illness. In the UK there should be a professional body that is equally disgusted with how some of their members are abusing a whole patient population. In any other profession a group of idiots causing so much damage would have been called to account long ago.

Until psychologists put their house in order they'll get zero co-operation from me, including filling in their students' online questionnaires.
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
A little bit OCD? The student seems to be confusing the everyday slangy meaning OCD has been given with the life-consuming condition she claims to be studying.
The reason I suspect we're not dealing with incisive scientific minds.
This couldn't possibly be leading to the conclusion that M.E. patients' stubborn refusal to accept that they have a psychosomatic condition is based on their OCD tendencies could it?
But who could think such a thing?
There you go, worldbackwards. Done my bit for science.
Ah, it's its own reward!
Ah, what I mean is, how was this survey promoted?
Don't really know, but I saw that on Twitter which I suspect gives us a flavour.
 

ScottTriGuy

Stop the harm. Start the research and treatment.
Messages
1,402
Location
Toronto, Canada
Quite amazing to think that the unique bacterial makeup of any given individual could essentially determine their behavior and personality characteristics; puts a whole new freaky spin on behavioral science.

I was very disturbed when I learned about the effects of taxomplasmosis on human behaviour:

"For example, Toxoplasma infection alters rat behavior with surgical precision, making them lose their fear of (and even become sexually aroused by!) the smell of cats by hijacking neurochemical pathways in the rat's brain"

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...k-side-the-link-between-parasite-and-suicide/

I wonder if a sign that one has a taxo infection when one is sexually aroused by cats? (pink)