PIP - Daily living - Activity 9: Engaging with other people face to face

nottingham13

Regarding this descriptor:

Cannot engage with other people due to such engagement causing either - (i) overwhelming psychological distress to the claimant; or (ii) the claimant to exhibit behaviour which would result in a substantial risk of harm to the claimant or another person. 8 points

Regarding "Cannot engage with other people due to such engagement causing either - (i) overwhelming psychological distress to the claimant; ". 

Does this mean if you can't engage with other people because of fatigue, would you qualify this criteria?  

Although not primarily because of overwhelming psychological distress, but would cause overwhelming distress because of overwhelming fatigue.  

Thanks

tacpot12

Fatigue isn't distress. So I don't think it would qualify. If you are fatigued, you need to take a rest, but few interactions are such that taking a break is not possible.

Spoonie_Turtle

In short: I don't know, and to be clear I am of course not a lawyer nor an expert.

But some points to consider:
Legally speaking, overwhelming psychological distress has to result from mental illness.  So the overwhelming distress from fatigue wouldn't count as that.  Actually, no, "“psychological distress” means distress related to an enduring mental health condition or an intellectual or cognitive impairment;"
https://pipinfo.net/activities/engaging-with-other-people-face-to-face
Interesting - because fatigue certainly can and does cause overwhelming distress; would it count as due to cognitive impairment?  Brainfog from fatigue is definitely cognitive impairment, but does it count as enduring?

However, if you cannot reliably do the activity even with support (? What support for fatigue?  I don't know - if there is any, I've not found it either) to meet descriptor C, you should not be classed as being able to do the activity.

Hence, I don't know.

It would be exceptionally helpful if there were some case law around this, though fatigue usually scores enough points in other areas that it's likely not been necessary to consider in that much depth.  Maybe that could inform your focus, explain your difficulties with engaging with other people, but realistically don't expect to score points there and concentrate your main effort on the other activities where scoring due to fatigue is more clear-cut.

nottingham13

I think i may have found dome case law: Not sure!

First, while it is obviously the

case that the descriptor is expressed in terms of “engagement causing … overwhelming

psychological distress”, it is also expressed in terms of an inability to engage with other

people “due to such engagement causing [such] distress” and it therefore equally obviously

contemplates the possibility of such a person not engaging with other people so as to avoid

the distress. There is an element of “the chicken and the egg – which came first?” about

descriptor 9(d) but this may be a reflection of my second point. This is that the First-tier

Tribunal's decision must be read as a whole and a tribunal is quite entitled to infer from the

fact that a claimant actually carries out an activity reasonably often that he or she can do so

without undue pain, distress or other discomfort. That is not a necessary inference, but it is

a permissible one. The other side of the coin is that not carrying out an activity may be an indication that a claimant would suffer undue pain, distress or other discomfort if the activity

were to be carried out. Given a choice, most people, most of the time, avoid undue pain,

distress or other discomfort, although people who have disabilities may be forced to

balance the desirability of carrying out an exercise against pain, distress or other discomfort

that will arise from it more often than other people do. Moreover, it seems to me that the

legislation is predicated upon there being interaction, or a vicious circle, between the

engagement with other people and the psychological distress – the engagement causes

distress which in turn affects the quality of further engagement and raises the question

whether it can be undertaken to the required standard. The reality, I suggest, is that if

engaging, or the prospect of engaging, with other people is in practice accompanied by

significant psychological distress (as that term is defined in Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the

2013 Regulations), the causal connections will be inferred.

Spoonie_Turtle

That case also refers to being able to do the activity to an acceptable standard (which is part of the reliability criteria), which includes whether the effects of doing it are acceptable - in the case of fatigue, if it wears you out to the point of needing to rest before being able to do anything else (any of the other PIP activities), that could be argued it's not to an acceptable standard.

peteuk

Just dug out my training posters...
Activity 9 focuses on Mental health and cognitive development/learning difficulties.   It is not related to any physical conditions.  Therefore although I agree with Spoonie-Turtle, the activity will be score 0 as it can be discounted.

You could apply the same argument to Activity 10 (budgeting) but again its MH/Cognitive. 

ayupmeduck

Sorry no mental health/cognitive impairment that would qualify you. Also having a rest when fatigued would count as a strategy to overcome any issues so would be 9A, if it was considered. You can physically interact with others without the need for prompting/reassurance or social support. You are also not at risk to yourself/others or are vulnerable.

nottingham13

Thanks for your help.  I found this from the DWP, regarding this descriptor:

‘Psychological distress’ means distress related to an enduring mental health condition or an intellectual or cognitive impairment. However, this condition may have a physical root cause."

Dont quite understand what "However, this condition may have a physical root cause."?

diystarter7

Hi OP

It may have changed but the coucil or a charitable organisation relatively local to you may have a specialist benefits advisor that helps people with the completion of these forms as they are complex. There is often someone there that has completed many dozens of these forms for epople that have difficulty completing them or advised people as hese forums can be hard to understand, So call the council Monday and seek advice, redirection to the approate help possibly cia citizens advice etc

In the meantime this may help with most of the form

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/help-with-your-claim/fill-in-form-pip/


Thnaks

Alice_Holt

peteuk said:

Just dug out my training posters...
Activity 9 focuses on Mental health and cognitive development/learning difficulties.   It is not related to any physical conditions.  Therefore although I agree with Spoonie-Turtle, the activity will be score 0 as it can be discounted.

You could apply the same argument to Activity 10 (budgeting) but again its MH/Cognitive. 

      I don't think it's as straightforward as that.

  Assessments tend towards this simplistic black and white analysis, but at tribunal the professional panel recognise it is much more nuanced. Hence, in part, the 70% success rate at appeal (even after an assessor, first DWP DM, second DWP DM, and a third DWP employee preparing the appeal papers have thought otherwise). 

  Physical conditions can cause result in low motivation and poor mental health.
 There is a link between the physical and mental health.

 In the OP's case physical fatigue (and possibly pain) could well give rise to low motivation, and other mental health symptoms. However IMO for points to be awarded, this would need to be manifest in other PIP activities, and the PIP2 form show a consistent picture.
Taking the OP's post at face value, a description of mental fatigue only relating to social engagement may be unlikely to score points.     

Muttleythefrog

Agree with Spoonie and Alice advice.

Distinguishing physical, mental and cognitive problems from each other is not really scientific (these are like all such definitions more for practical and language use than understanding a reality) and so unsurprisingly we end up with problems applying descriptors and even determining which activities are relevant to what/who. We are reminded PIP is awarded due to the symptoms/impairments caused by illness, injury, disability yet diagnosis is used to apparently determine which activities and descriptors can be relevant and even justify their selection through such diagnoses (in my case the wrong one I'd suggest). I imagine fatigue I attribute to 'mental illness' is indistinguishable from that with some underlying 'physical problem' in someone else although to trigger this descriptor through description of fatigue probably tough and in my case I trigger it through behaviours due to mental illness.... indeed demonstrated at assessment when I motioned to kill the assessor and had to be restrained relevantly to the thread after an argument over the applicability of mobility 2 activity which she black and white refused to engage despite my reference to a tribunal at the time on psychosomatic symptoms. "We're not here to apply the law" she said - which perhaps says it all about these assessments and often challenged decisions.

Sorry can't beat Alice for wording.. simplistic black and white assessments and decision making (particularly at the DWP) and the shifting sands of legal interpretation and you have outcomes that can vary sufficiently to say an argument can be had for say applicability of descriptors like this to condition as stated. I do think though it would be a hard sell for point (i) and point (ii) rule out unless wider problems. The angle of reliability as Spoonie references (alongside any psychological barriers being posed by the fears of engagement due to the known consequences caused by fatigue) may be best route to argue but I think any energies you do have may be better spent on lower scoring descriptors of other Daily Living activities. In some senses I'd be wary of making a hard argument for applicability of something the deficients reading may see as attempts to exaggerate problems or treat the PIP activities like exam questions.