DWP Access to Work providers are pushing controversial psychotherapies to people with ME

Organisations specialising in support for neurodivergent employees are advertising their services to people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) through the Department of Work and Pension’s (DWP) Access to Work scheme. An investigation by the Canary has revealed how they have been treating ME as an ‘acquired’ neurodivergent condition.

Now, the Canary has also uncovered how some are promoting notorious pseudoscientific psychotherapies to get people with ME back to work.

DWP Access to Work: sending people with ME for coaching

As we previously reported:

A person living with ME has approached the Canary to whistleblow over their alarming experience engaging with AtW. Notably, DWP staff administering the scheme had directed them to organisations misrepresenting the condition as a form of neurodivergence.

Further undercover investigation by the Canary has found that the support these organisations offered people with ME may have involved some problematic therapies.

The Canary approached staff at these organisations as an employee with ME seeking prospective support through the Access to Work scheme.

Conversations with them revealed a number of incongruities in their understanding and approach to employees with ME.

Conflicting understanding around ME

A senior employee at No Drama Llamas mentioned the concept of “spoons”. She demonstrated some level of knowledge over the ME patients’ need to pace. People with ME regularly use “spoons” to describe their limited energy/relative wellness budget.

The staff member explained how the organisation provides co-coaching with managers and the employee with ME. This would be to advocate for workplace accommodations.

All this sounded somewhat positive, until they detailed how ME:

comes under our neurodiverse umbrella.

They said that as an organisation, they:

know that it’s not just about the fatigue, it’s about the impact on your working memory and your time management and being organised and your focus and concentration. This is why it comes under the neurodiverse thing, because it impacts your brain in just the same way as me with ADHD and dyspraxia and autism. You’re going to have the same challenges that I have because of the way that your condition affects your cognition and your executive function.

Similarly, a Creased Puddle coach explained that the company views ME as “an acquired neurodivergence” stating that:

when we think about neurodivergence, the conditions people think of [are] Autism, ADHD, dyslexia, tourettes, and these are all conditions that people are born with and will have for the whole of their life. Whereas you weren’t fresh out of the womb with ME, you didn’t have it at all. You’ve developed it over time and you could actually recover.

Again, coaching seemed to centre round learning “strategies” and “workarounds” for addressing ME’s impact on “executive function”.

However, the conversation with Creased Puddle also revealed that coaches would apply controversial psychological therapies in sessions involving people with ME.

When workplace adjustments means adjusting you

On its neurodiversity coaching webpage, it lists the credentials of its coaching team. The Canary noticed that this included Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

ACT has been described as part of the “third wave” of cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT). As MEpedia explains:

ACT assumes that psychological suffering is caused by experiential avoidance of symptoms and hurtful thoughts and feelings.

So, as the NHS puts it, ACT is about learning:

to get ‘unhooked’ from unhelpful thoughts.

Biopsychosocial clinicians have long promoted this “think yourself better” psychotherapy guff for people living with ME. However, the 2021 NICE guidelines finally downgraded the evidence around its efficacy. This was only after years of the promotion of CBT as a cure for ME causing incalculable harm to patients.

As such, it’s obviously concerning that AtW services supporting people with ME may be applying a CBT approach in fresher wrapping.

Meanwhile, NLP is a pseudoscientific psychotherapy that has bounced around since the 1970s. It’s a loose collection of techniques:

designed to alter behaviour by reprogramming unconscious patterns of thought

Put simply, it’s more junk science pushing the idea that ME patients just need to think more positively.

The staff member the Canary spoke to confirmed that this was a possible approach coaches might use for clients with ME. When the Canary asked what this might look like for an employee with ME, they told us that:

It may be something like, for example, you might be telling yourself internally, I’m no good at doing this, this, and this. I never get it right. I always get it wrong. So your coach will kind of challenge the language you’re telling yourself. Because actually, if you’re telling yourself you’re never going to do it, then you’re never going to do it.

Not dismissing its neurological basis?

The Canary contacted these organisations for comment. Genius Within had not responded at the time of publication.

No Drama Llamas refuted the suggestion it classifies ME as a “developmental neurodivergent condition”. It  stated that it fully recognises ME:

as a complex, multi-systemic, and acquired neuroimmune condition, as supported by research such as the DecodeME study.

However, it told the Canary that:

while the biological causes of ME/CFS and developmental neurodivergence (like ADHD or Autism) differ, there is a widely recognised and evidence-based overlap in how these conditions present cognitively in the workplace. Emerging clinical literature highlights that neuroinflammation—often mediated by immune and autonomic responses, including Mast Cell Activation—frequently drives cognitive challenges in ME/CFS patients, such as severe executive dysfunction, reduced processing speed, and “brain fog.”

Because of this profound overlap in cognitive impact, our approach utilises the ‘Taxonomy of Neurodiversity’ (Dr Nancy Doyle, BPS) and the concept of a “spiky profile” (an uneven distribution of cognitive strengths and challenges). We are not stating that an ME/CFS patient has a developmental neurodivergence; rather, we recognise that neuroimmune inflammation can chronically or temporarily alter executive functioning. This creates a functional cognitive profile that benefits greatly from similar workplace strategy coaching used for neurodivergent individuals.

Creased Puddle told the Canary that since December 2025, it has stopped offering its services to people living with ME. According to organisation’s PR consultant, this was following an “internal quality review” where it:

made the decision that our offering to Access to Work would only be for individuals whose grant was primarily as a result of challenges related to Autism, ADHD or a Specific Learning Difference and we notified ATW assessors on the 19th December 2025 of this change.

Reflecting a ‘wider systemic problem’

The undercover conversations the Canary had with these organisations gave us the impression that coaches were genuine in their desire to support people with ME. Nevertheless, it was patently clear none were qualified to actually do so.

And of course, it’d be remiss not to recognise that their businesses will of course profit from providing this coaching. The DWP’s AtW scheme is essentially subsidising their services for employers with workers living with ME.

On reading our findings, Sally Callow, founder of ME training organisation Stripy Lightbulb CIC that runs ME-informed sessions for employers and healthcare professionals, told the Canary that:

This situation reflects a wider systemic problem: there is currently no requirement for organisations providing workplace support to have any training or understanding of ME/CFS. Without basic, evidence‑based knowledge of this complex neurological disease, it is unsurprising that some providers are misclassifying M.E./C.F.S. or offering approaches that are inappropriate, but also potentially harmful, for people living with the condition.

Improved M.E./C.F.S. education across government departments, assessment bodies, and commissioned services is essential. A consistent and accurate understanding of the condition would prevent unsuitable referrals and ensure that people with M.E./C.F.S. receive support that aligns with current biomedical evidence rather than assumptions or outdated models.

The investigation raises serious concerns about the types of support available to employees living with ME. In spite of its long delays and numerous accessibility issues, the DWP’s AtW is currently the only scheme for helping chronically ill people returning to or staying in work.

However, it seems that what that support looks like for employees with ME could very well be more gaslighting and psychologising interventions that treat them like malingerers: not the extremely ill and disabled people they really are.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

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