| Q: There
are very few approaches for ME/CFS and I'm finding it hard to know
which one is right for me. What are the important things I need to
consider in order to choose the right approach for me?
A:
That's an intelligent question and because you need an unbiased answer,
I won't answer it myself. However, you may find the following exercise
helpful to your decision making process:
Imagine if you will, that you are lost deep
in woodlands somewhere. It's dark and scary, the shadows and noises are
playing tricks on your mind and you feel scared and stuck. If you could
only make one phone call for help, how would you know who to ring?
When I ask people this question they say, "that's
easy". You would know intuitively on a gut level who you would
call. I get answers like, "I'd call someone who knows the woods
like the back of their hand. I could describe my surroundings and they
would know exactly where I am because they've been there and can direct
me step by step to safety."
Questions you may want to ask yourself when
choosing the right approach for you are:
- Whether you prefer a person-centred
independent consultant or someone working for a larger impersonal
therapy business franchise.
- Does the therapist have only a clinical
map/understanding of the illness, or have they actually experienced
ME/CFS themselves.
- Is the therapist experienced - some
advertise that the 'process' they use has helped thousands of
people, however that doesn't actually mean that they have
personally helped thousands of people, so ask them about 'their'
experience and success rate.
I often ask course participants what the
deciding factor was that helped them choose the Energy Excellence
Course. Here's the most common answer I get:
"I did extensive Internet research and
spoke to a number of therapists who offer courses for ME/CFS, most of
them seem to operate under some kind of restrictive franchise and had
not actually had the illness themselves. I chose you because you're an
independent consultant, your track record and the amount of people
you've helped to overcome this illness and the key factor that made the
difference for me was that you had had ME/CFS yourself. I knew from the
first time I spoke with you that you understood exactly where I was
coming from."
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