Letter to The Guardian, 28 April 2021 (Published)

In response to this Opinion piece in the The Guardian, I wrote the following response, which I’m pleased to say was published on 29 April:

“In reviewing the possible role of psychology in treating long Covid (Long Covid is very far from ‘all in the mind’ – but psychology can still help us treat it, 27 April), Dr Pariante misrepresents why many ME/CFS patients remain skeptical towards psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). It is not because we deny the important overlap between ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ illness, but rather because these interventions are offered as ‘treatments’, based on poor quality evidence of short-term marginal improvements in some patients.

“No cancer patient is offered psychotherapeutic interventions as treatment; rather, these therapies play a supportive role for patients who require them. In contrast, CBT has been recommended as a first-line treatment for ME/CFS for over a decade. Indeed, the dominance of the biopsychosocial model of ME/CFS—with its emphasis on the roles of thoughts and behaviour, rather than pathology—is one of the reasons why long Covid patients are now facing such limited options within the clinic.”