Background: People with persistent pain are frequently offered a pain management programme (PMP) as part of their care plan. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) principles often underpin PMPs and has a good evidence base; nevertheless, more recent systematic reviews have suggested that its effectiveness is limited. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) is a form of ‘third-wave CBT’ that offers an alternative and complementary view of pain, encouraging the person to be alongside their experience of pain and respond to it using skills of compassion they have learnt. Method: The current research explored the effectiveness of a 12-week CFT group for people who experience persistent pain. Research interviews explored CFT members’ experiences of the CFT group. Feedback was collected on the facilitators’ experience of running the group and questionnaire data collected on participants’ mood, pain disability, acceptance of chronic pain and levels of self-criticism and self-reassurance. Results: Interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis that revealed five master superordinate themes representative across all interviews. These were then triangulated with data from the questionnaires and facilitator feedback. Conclusion: In people whose persistent pain was compounded by a significant psychological component, a CFT group approach helped reduce feelings of isolation, improve ability to self-reassure, learn new ways of coping and develop a growing acceptance of the limitations associated with their pain. The possible implications for future clinical practice are considered.

Although CFS/ME (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) has been heavily researched and contested, there is a distinct absence of studies which consider the relationship between the illness and family process. This is a striking omission given the centrality of the family to the proximal management of the illness. This study used a discourse analytic methodology to consider how talk about illness is locally negotiated by a family in the context of a single family interview. The individual in the family who had been diagnosed with CFS/ME was a sixteen yearold adolescent girl who had experienced symptoms for 18 months. Our findings suggested that family discourses about CFS/ME were polarized around the issue of intentionality. Two family members deemed the illness to represent 'genuine illness' and two regarded the illness to be intentionally used for advantage. These illness accounts were considered as both constitutive-off and constituted-by family conflict. We consider the implications of these findings in developing clinical formulations of the illness and in determining how best to support recovery.

pleasure or comfort to the person doing them. This is followed by a glossary and finally a reference list and notes.Dasha has written a very "personal" account of autism in which she champions both humans on the autistic spectrum and animals, challenging ordinary humans to be less sure that their way of experiencing the world is superior or the only one. She explores not just how autism might make one different, but also how these differences may arise and why they can be so individual. Her use of illustrative examples is a particular strength. None of the ideas that she explores are new, but she has drawn on a wide literature base to make it clear that recognizing the sensory and emotional complexities that underlie autistic experience is a good basis on which to build on strengths and try to mitigate or work around weaknesses. This is a book that will be found useful by those who live or work alongside people on the autistic spectrum. Old hands may find ideas to challenge their existing attitudes to autism and a reading list that will help widen their understanding of what the world might be like for those on the autistic spectrum. The illustrative stories in the book will be useful to families with an autistic member, but the language and references to a wide literature may put off some readers.