I might pull out a couple of bits that bugged me too:
Maintaining factors - examples
Behaviours
Repeated investigations (NHS, privately or
alternative practitioners)
Repeatedly seeking external cure
Reading about symptoms e.g. medical
textbooks, internet
I'm particularly angered by this one because, for a long time, I followed it. I couldn't be bothered to spend my time reading up on stuff on my own, when I thought that, if there was any well researched and evidence based work relevant to my case, I would be informed of it by the 'experts'. Since realising that's not the case and putting some independent work in my friend's been diagnosed a separate condition and is free of the CFS label, (I've sldo found some useful information for myself) ... etc. That's a decade of their lives lost because they didn't realise the extent to which the psychosocial approach to CFS led to clinician's active disinterest in relevant medical investigations and evidence, rather than just placing quackery in the void where there was no good evidence to be used.
If we could trust those working at CFS centres in the UK to do their jobs properly then we wouldn't need to spend our time looking in to this stuff ourselves. Thanks to the pragmatic quackery promoted by Chalder etc, in which psychosocial factors can be presumed to be the cause of fatigue without the need for any good positive evidence that this is the case for a particular individual patient - we've got no choice but to be our own doctors.
If I cant keep up with my usual standards at
work, other people will think Im a failure
If I tell people I need help, theyll think Im not
up to the job
If people think Im not coping then theyll reject
me
(Such beliefs may also occur in people with other
types of unexplained physical symptoms)
Such beliefs may also occur in people with other types of explained physical symptoms... because they're often true! It really pisses me off that reasonable beliefs and responses can be so casually classed as dysfunctional or pathological by psychosocial CFS researchers. I think it's a really disgusting way to view the developments of beliefs, that totally undercuts the sort of respectful dialogue that's meant to underpin liberal democracies. I was just speaking to someone whose MUS have now been explained, and they were talking about being rejected and viewed as inferior after getting ill and being diagnosed with CFS. This isn't just some demented paranoia we've just imagined Trudie! - it's something which occurs in no small part as a result of your work.
Chalder doesn't seem to realise the extent to which her own work has meant that people with CFS are much more likely to be rejected, or seen as just 'not up to the job'. For all her twittering about an expansive and sophisticated psychosocial approach, she seems to have the most reductionist and simplistic approach to understanding how her actions have affected CFS patients.
It is a bit silly to rant like this over slides when we don't even have access to a transcript... but better out than in. Otherwise it would be claimed I'm incapable of expressing a healthy disdain for her.