Comments Simon Wessely revisits some of his early work on chronic fatigue syndrome, journal article (2012) Wessely

It's really hard to pin down whatever he's thinking. He spent years arguing aggressively against any recognition of this disease, blatantly lying about his critics and the nature of the criticism. He has a long public record of intervening against anyone who published anything that disagreed with his opinion. One of the only actually fair bits of reporting about him was an article about how the ME community had found a mortal enemy in him. IIRC he got that article unpublished and the author fired, but maybe I mixed my events on that one. He truly does not understand why he is hated and that it is more than well-deserved.

A few weeks ago following the latest "help, we are being silenced, read all about it in this internationally syndicated special report" he tweeted something to the effect "why am I being criticized so much when all I was doing is trying to help them?" Just clueless and self-centered.

He reminds me of proponents of gay conversion therapy, which is pretty much the same thing as he has been promoting. His ideological blinders make him completely unable to see reality. I'm not sure how much sense it makes to be a good psychiatrist with an inability for empathy. He clearly only understands his own perspective, has no ability to relate to the consequences of what he does onto others.

Which all explains a lot about the failings of psychiatry. It's a needed specialty but when this guy represents the "best" among them, celebrated for it, well, that says everything.

 

This is one of the key things about such folk - they don't listen, full stop.

 

Only when it comes time to review what sophistry will be most effective.

 

Quite. Not just about listening, but the motivation for it.

 

There are two conclusions one can form after reading Wessely's study the first is there is little difference between depression and CFS. The second is the questionnaire lacks relevance or specificity. Now if the questionnaire was designed by asking patients what is relevant and associated relevance, understandability etc were published then the first conclusion may be justified. But since they did not ask patients what was relevant, the latter conclusion is more suitable (the questionnaire lacks relevance or specificity).

It surprises me how after so many studies, they don't realise how many patients dislike the Chalder/Wessely fatigue scales and don't believe they are relevant.

 

I am not sure that one could draw that conclusion. It is probably a couple of years since I read the paper, and I am working from memory. My recollection of it is that one of the conclusions was that somewhere between a quarter and a third of patients did not appear to suffer from anxiety or depression. It was then either assumed that they would respond to the samettreatment as those who did, or were conveniently forgotten.

 

If he wanted to help he would not have made all the ridiculous claims.

 

He does want to help ... himself. Damn I wish we could talk politics here!!! (But not really, far more important things to discuss ).

 

For a long while after CFS, ME was taken being depression. There was the odd bit about deconditioning and other things but it never formed a coherent narrative Going back over old texts things are mentioned that seem now to be part of the infection - deconditioned - frightened to move - more deconditioned theory but the idea out there was depression all the way.

When anyone complained that ME was not depression someone with depression was rolled out to say that people with ME were being nasty to people with depression They have always manufactured accusations that people with ME are horrible to everyone who does not share their own deluded beliefs.

It is easy to say ME is depression if you look the right way. If I define "pussycat" as being furry, having a tail and walking on four legs, I can easily prove that cats and dogs are the same species. Then like the hydra of MUS I could add in foxes, weasels, tigers and lions.

But that is not science and not medicine either.

 

If one did not show depression it was assumed it was hidden depression.

 

My "specialist" (and i use that term loosely...) once actually said to me, "Well you must have depression without the depression." That's not a thing!

 

The most ridiculous part is the fact that people are jumping to far reaching conclusions based on sloppy questionnaires.

 

Very similar here: A consultant I saw years ago for my as-yet-undiagnosed ME wanted me to take antidepressants, and when I told him there was no point in that as I wasn't depressed, his highly scientific reply was "Well, sometimes the body can be depressed even if the mind isn't." Er, say what now?

 

Most of the comments I see in the wild from medical professionals reflect this. They don't care about any of the actual research, don't read it, don't bother with any of the details. They simply take invalid PACE=psychological, despite being a pragmatic trial, from which cause cannot be inferred, and just add whatever personal variation of depression, anxiety or general weakness of character they prefer. Most common I see is the physical symptoms of depression, whatever that means and nevermind there is no evidence of any kind.

So this narrative is still very much the most commonly believed. I doubt most professionals would know any of the details of CBT, GET or any of this. Any therapy, self-coaching or whatever is good enough. The only relevant detail is "not medical, therefore not their problem".

 

Indeed.

 

Ah... "Argumentum ad populum."

...and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2" is a great movie because it made $107.6 million.