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You can't just believe the patients ,you know. They have dysfunctional cognitions...not to mention maladaptive behaviour.

We all, I am sure, recall SW's joke about receiving a note from a neurologist saying "Will you see this girl, Simon? There's nothing wrong with her." Or words to that effect. How we laughed.

I wonder whether they took legal advice over the likely efficacy of that exclusion clause, and, if they did, why they deemed it necessary to do so.

I am sure they are world leading in some respects.

"The Wellness Approach". I love the way they think we have never heard of George Orwell. Or, perhaps they haven't.

...unless it isn't.

There is on the twitter feed on 27 July a fascinating copy of a report in the LA Times dated 12 feb 1970 on the M and B paper. It appears to be syndicated from the Washington Post. The author Alfred Friendly appears to have been managing editor of the WP at the time. I hope it will be copied...

The one thing of which stupid people are convinced is that what they consider to be generally true is true in every particular case.

What will be interesting to see is whether the contemporaneous reporting gives any indication of particular anxiety sufficient to cause a hysterical response. One of the problems I have with the hysterical explanation is that its proponents seem unable to agree amongst themselves which are the...

The concept "wilfully" has been known to cause all sorts of conundrums.

Perhaps failure to test was a strategic decision.

Jenkins quotes Gosling P (1970Epidemic Malaise BMJ 1, 499-500) as saying Secondly, in 1955, a very high proportion of the staff and student population and all the nurses at the Royal Free Hospital were females. Most of the male students were at that time preclinical and were away, as it was the...

There is a somewhat surprising element to both the thesis and the 1973 paper. It is usually stated that no patients were diagnosed with the condition. It seems this is false. Both in-patients and out-patients were diagnosed, though admittedly in relatively small numbers. I have previously...

Interesting to see in the thesis the suggestion that one person remained ill for a year. This was claimed in the 1970 papers but it is clear from the 1973 follow up that they were aware by at least 1969 that at least 7 of the 100 (or fewer given the failures to respond) remained ill. A...

I think we can see where dysfunctional cognitions and maladaptive behaviour might have come from.

Who knows who Simon Wessely is, but perhaps we should look at those who guided and influenced him in his formative years. This appeared at the bottom of his 1987 Hysteria paper. I wish to thank Professor M. Shepherd, Professor G. F. M. Russell and Dr R. Dolan for their help and advice They...

The original paper under discussion sent me back to look at McEvedy's papers on the schools outbreaks. It occurred to me that one might learn something not only from the rate of spread, but also from the rate of recovery. Both the Blackburn and RFH conditions were postulated on the ground that...

Can that date of 1990 for the Oslo /Sweden polio outbreak be correct.? Does it mean 1890?

Isn't this like the unfortunate trans Atlantic liner metaphor. A compass, on its own, is only useful if you already know your intended direction of travel. Now, if they had a map as well they might find out where they were.

That seems an unwise piece of advice if they are hoping to cure the patient. Other family members get old. They may even come to require care. People remember.