Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

I don't think he's backed off, just a bit taken aback at the vehemence of the response from some.

 

I would recommend to read the whole Twitter thread and completely agree with @Lucibee. This is so sad.

(ETA: Twitter)

 

Trying to exemplify humility ain't quite the same as being humble (especially if you lecture people on human nature along the way). Us professors and lawyers need to listen a bit more sometimes. These ordinary patient people know rather more what they are talking about than might appear from a cursory glance.

 

I'm unable to read the full exchange which led to this, so am not sure of the context or what it means exactly.

And when that presumption has been thoroughly rebutted and years have passed, do we still have to accept lessons in humility?

 

I've just realised that if I click on the little bird I am able to read the whole exchange .

 

It’s sad to see.

 

It's twitter.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1007229012220022784

https://twitter.com/user/status/1007233956364869637

https://twitter.com/user/status/1007278073010704385

https://twitter.com/user/status/1007324904780230656

https://twitter.com/user/status/1007333391145029632

Eta, last pair of comments

 

I think what's happened here is that Claudia has mistook a reply to someone else as a reply to her. [edit: in some formats, Twitter "helpfully" misses out the convo between your first tweet and the latest one]. But I daren't say anything, because last time I did that I got beaten to a pulp by Angela!

[update: I've gone in...]

 

Still sad to see.

 

Well it sounds like they are all still engaging with each other, so maybe things aren't as bad as they appeared during that heated full and frank exchange.

 

Being bombarded with @ replies on something you know very little about is at best a bit perplexing on twitter and at worst very irritating. This may have been what has happened here. No grand conspiracy, just someone who got drawn into a debate that they knew very little about and bombarded with responses.

 

Case in point, *this* just happened. Here's my tweet:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1007337609918640128


Here's how it displays in my feed:



Twitter has been optimised for conflict.

 

Meanwhile,
https://twitter.com/user/status/1007317171469537280

And,
https://twitter.com/user/status/983706830122770432

https://twitter.com/user/status/1007316350753263617

Sharpe has totally abrogated responsibility.

I'd like to believe that it is unintentional idiocy, incompetence and error that is behind this whole mess, but I'm afraid I cannot believe that Sharpe is as clueless as he is asserting here.

 

I like the expression banality of evil.

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-did-hannah-arendt-really-mean-by-the-banality-of-evil

I still subscribe to the theory that the BPSers know exactly what they are doing and simply have no empathy or consider patients unworthy of anything but exploitation and mistreatment (in line with cruel austerity policies inflicted on the sick by the current UK government).

Maybe this banality of evil theory is a better fit though.

 

Looks like a couple of people misunderstood Godwin's tweets and were making unfair criticisms of what he'd said. Would be useful if people could avoid doing that, or apologised promptly when mistakes were made. [edit: especially as twitter does that truncating thing, and misses out tweets, it's important to check carefully for context before jumping in with criticisms].

I think twitter is terrible for discussing topics like PACE anyway. Only seen a couple of people use it to really change other people's views, and they seemed to do so by being very gentle and cautious.

 

Except psychologists and psychiatrists should presumably be quite good at putting themselves in the other person's shoes, and at empathy. Where are they without theory of mind, after all?

 

The other day Sharpe also tweeted something which suggested he is concerned with making sure that patients don't offload all responsibilities for getting better on the treating doctor. Which reveals a moralistic view of us patients.

So CBT/GET to him may be valuable because it separates patients into those deserving of help (those who push themselves) and those undeserving (those who give up). Whether it improves the patient's health would be irrelevant.

This is very much in line with the message that Wessely et al have been sending since the early days, namely that patients should be expected to undertake a course of CBT/GET before being given disability support.

Is CBT/GET born out of the prejudice of the common man and woman on the street that patients are lazy more than they are sick?

Or is this moralistic stance merely an excuse to make it harder for patients to obtain disability support? This is very plausible too. Those who are stereotyped as lazy and irrational are less protected from discrimination, and a clever and ruthless insurance company could promote this narrative through psychiatrists. Wessely et al do seem very concerned with influencing public health policy on ME/CFS.