Not knowing about PEM is proof positive you don't know IACCs.

Even if you're not studying #MECFS, omitting the possibility of PEM in a trial for #LongCOVID (where many meet criteria for #MECFS) or for common comorbidities, like fibro, hypermobility disorders like #EDS, or #POTS is in error.

This is not specific PT/OT, it's telling the person to walk more steps tomorrow than today, as if it's something that would not have occurred to the patient without help.

It's astonishing hubris.

And it is harmful, especially when it comes with the adjuration to ignore resultant symptoms.

...of the presumption that gradually increasing exercise is a rehabilitative for people with infection-associated chronic conditions like #MECFS and #LongCOVID.

The idea of graded exercise as a special therapy your doctor has to help you carry out is absurd.

Alice in her own words: bsky.app/profile/thra...

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”

10) The interview can be rewatched here:

9) Prof. Hughes wrote a new book about this called 'Psychology’s Quiet Conservatism' which can be found here:
link.springer.com/bo...

You can support David Tuller's work (only 1 day left to donate for his fundraiser) using this link:
crowdfund.berkeley.e...

7) So rather than providing social safety nets, illness benefits, and medical services to people who have suffering in their lives, psychology participates in this bureaucratic effort to avoid those commitments.

6) Psychologists and their psychiatrist cousins have been at the forefront of characterising unexplained illnesses as psychiatric problems.

This then becomes a political question as such explanations are popular among people who are concerned about spending money on disability.

5) Prof. Hughes then applies this to ME/CFS and medically unexplained conditions. The idea in psychology is that if a person cannot be established to be physically ill through some kind of biomarker, then it must be psychological.

4) Psychology identifies disability in terms of a person's ability to participate in the norms of society without ever questioning those norms.

It focuses on individuals and the deficits in their repertoire of behavior.

3) He explains: "By encouraging people to look inside themselves for a change, you are guaranteeing that the world will carry on the way it is, which, of course, is deeply unjust and unequal. "

2) Hughes argues that the problems people encounter are usually systemic and require social and structural solutions. But psychology promotes a personal, libertarian view that blames the victim rather than the system.