Who is Simon Wessely?

It looks confusing but the bits I've tried to work out that might help 'unbundle':

From: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/become-a-psychiatrist/choose-psychiatry/how-to-become-a-psychiatrist

I think* (maybe someone more expert can shed more light or any corrections) qualifying as a psychiatrist, like many other medical specialisms, involves you training to be a medical doctor ('medical school' degree + foundation years) and then doing training in psychiatry which I guess will include passing the psychiatry exams and completing training which I thought was normally being work-based ie roles in different areas, but the following seems to note can be research/academic based: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/become-a-...ow-to-become-a-psychiatrist/career-essentials

Also, re the undergrad stuff - and the BA in Art HIstory etc:

If you train to be a doctor at Oxbridge (vs another UK institution tends to have a course that combines clinical through all years) the course has always been split into pre-clinical (first 3yrs) then clinical 3yrs where you are starting to be 'hands-on' stuff. Hence it seems he did the pre-clinical Cambridge, then clinical at Oxford.

Re the BA Art History It seems at Cambridge pre-clinical the third year of that you can choose subjects outside of medicine: https://www.biology.cam.ac.uk/undergrads/MedST/Prospective/Course

 

Might be random but I've just read wikipedia which suggests: His first paper was entitled "Dementia and Mrs. Thatcher": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1419190/pdf/bmjcred00479-0028a.pdf

Which I'm not fully sure what to make of as an article, other than noting the topic and style being familiarly of the type that might be more interesting to laypersons etc (says Mrs Thatcher was more recallable by dementia patients than the queen) - the first author listed is Ian J Deary and Wessely is Registrar then in 1984

 

Re that paper, a relative was assessed for dementia just after Sunak took office and was still asked who the monarch and PM were. The psychiatrist did admit that the question was trickier than usual.

 

that doesn't seem quite 'fair'

 

I beg to disagree. Remember post NICE cerfuffle.. FOI NHS England top brass saying fiddle it to get the desired outcome.. did we ever put a name to those critical pre publish and be damned internal emails NICE -Crisp/ Leng and 1 other? Roundtable event followed by GRIP? We need to know as Service provision and delivery across 42 New shiny ICSs depends on it! Also, DHSC report early '2023' has gone too quiet.

 

I agree! And there isnt AFAIA any good evidence for use of antivirals in Me/CFS
Its a shame because a lot of what he says is good, but i have concerns about the book he is writing - we dont need any more factually inaccurate tabloid-style stuff out there discrediting us as conspiracy theorists. I hope his book is more restrained than his blogs but i doubt it

lol, in your dreams.

(our dreams of course - we all wish it were so, but i'd be willing to bet that will never happen, not in 'a month of sundays' as my granny used to say. the reality i reckon would be the reverse)

 

Merged thread

Long Covid Advocacy recently posted a blog entitled:

“Professor Catastrophe - Simon Wessely Part One - The Wessely Files”
See https://longcovidadvocacy.substack....OOKQUmlpxmKA5K1Bnyx6nSnYJChHMTiQcvvYAkj1MQCs0

It is a useful overview of Professor Sir Simon’s psychologising of a wide range of events and conditions over some 35 years from the Camelford Water Incident via Gulf War Syndrome to most recently the Iranian school girl poisonings.

A sequel specifically on ME is planned:

*censorship is mine as I didn’t want to fall foul of our site rules
**my bolding

[edited to remove paragraph for moderators about where this would be best posted]

 

Part Two of Long Covid Advocacy’s Wessely Files is now on line:

The Wessely Wizard of Oz

see https://longcovidadvocacy.substack....id=118971331&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

[edited to add an additional quote]

 

I wonder how this Blog will read to people unfamiliar with the issues?

Long Covid Advocacy’s grasp of the situation and recent history is impressive and this account is likely to read as accurate to people familiar with the topic, particularly those of us in the ME bubble. However I worry, with such as its allusions to publicly unconfirmed interference attempts with a Long Covid charity and with NICE will it come across to the general reader as gossip and unfair ad hominem slurs.

 

funny as I was only recently remembering Jo Edwards (I think it was at the other place) calling Trudie Chalder 'ToTo'.

 

I think it needs to be said either way. People reading it at first here might be thinking exactly that, but if they're reading and hearing it more often they're more likely to do some investigation themselves. Have been down that road myself as have many here I'd imagine.

 

That's an important point to make. Repeating the most factual things in particular too. Such as Camelford. Those need direct repetition.

I'm pretty sure I'd add the Maudsley and their philosophy type groups etc to the list because I can often feel that influence in some of the more unusual thinking.

The Long Covid people picking up on it so quickly is indeed insightful of how the 'barrier' seems to be 'choosing to not look away' or all the other variations of excuse provided as low-hanging post-hoc justification alongside implicit threats of 'don't get involved' that come from Wessely and co and the way they write/speak/behave etc. (underlining that they are, and, [importantly] will be, vindictive). ie there isn't much of a debate if you choose to want to get to the bottom of it at all.

There is also another important term I'd try and get across for him and the group that drives where they are, how they think and what they do: utter entitlement,

this is what happens when certain people have it and are over-indulged to continue. and the delusion required with making the ends meet on your self-beliefs of yourself/worth vs your demands ie perspective. We all know you have to have strange ideologies to justify things that don't add up etc. And I do think that, as something new to come thru from this one, that is highly pertinent for it to be put across.


Initially I thought, we have to remember that he will be saying and doing all this whatever anyone has actually done or said, and he does those things in order to censor. He's mean but there is also a reason to it and him getting his 'reply' (even where nothing was there to reply to) without the facts is the ideal. And as he uses repetition for instil tropes the same principle is important in getting across truth and fact, of it being the same things being said.

Right now, half way through, though I just cannot help thinking how any one of us would have been replied to if we had send or phoned or whatever media used to make his 'complaints' in the manner he has. His attitude towards certain sections of society have influenced permission from most readers to belittle as 'emotional' and all sorts of other nasty tosh without reading whether there is content. Readers would do well to remember this.

I'm reading this wizard of oz article with some divided fascination however. We've all been put through this and isn't it important that we are perfectly allowed to discuss what is a very strange character and way to behave of these individuals and what might be going on with them? Is there another situation where individuals have put a foot on your neck of your life in some way but you aren't able to discuss why on earth they might do that, or what is wrong with them? But we've been so trained to be cautious.

 

And so I've had a think and do believe that the analysis of the individuals and modus operandi are also important - and merely need to be coherent (build the picture) rather than repetitious (7 repeats rule of advertising) because it is semantic memory. We also forget that humans are intrigued in the 'who, what, where, when and why' hence those being the tenets of journalism.

And of course in the case of these individuals the 'why' is about the 'who', even if people have slightly different exact theories there is enough for people to relate to and ascertain that part.

And yes, that to me seems as justified and right to as anything else - but goes to show 'how far gone' with the censoring us, that we don't even begin to assume we can do that because we still debate whether we can just do the factual stuff in the tone that is most appropriate. They are the ones who actively inserted themselves into pwme lives. Whatever their spiel. Banning someone from mentioning the metaphorical nightmare neighbour whilst noone can sleep or hear themselves things due to noise and keeps finding their property damaged (we need a new proverb or term along these lines as some think this is 'the etiquette') is just elephant in the room stuff to drive people insane after a few years, of course everyone near them is wondering what on earth is going on with them and what drives it.

It is also relevant because everyone in life meets 'those people' or 'people like that', there is a reason BPS make up nonsense about personality or fake rumours to lump us, people work on heuristics. That mother-in-law or nightmare colleague who was two-faced. That they then did y and z needs lesser explanation.

And there is a reason BPS mention certain nonsense about us - the 'motive' fallacy: where really whether you are the type of person who'd do a crime is the most likely driver, but someone infers a poor victim should be in the running for something done, or 'crime anticipated from' simply because of what has already been done to them. A double-victiming. And many of these things are textbook tell the complete story and phrases and the listener 'gets' who that person is. The 'tells'.

Basically people relate to what they know and have experienced so such detail matters and informs their predictions of both the problem and what is required to solve it or make a morally justified decision of action vs inaction when a bystander.

And yes there is a point where it is beyond 'good character for job' stuff and arguments of having different sides and all the stretches that might keep unsuitable people from being removed, into 'how on earth is this appropriate or safe' common sense, public judgement where the overwhelming weight says let's not split hairs and play filling out forms on HR policies. And many of these positions are political ones.

 

The replies. Wow. Live your life in a way that is the exact opposite of what this man did, and you will likely have lived a good life. Or at least, you will have been a good person. Given the choice, I would choose my own. Despite everything. This is as ugly as it's well-deserved. But the contrast between his life's work being celebrated by eminence with the gutter reality of what he created. Damn.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1669281465450872832


Definitely add your own civil and factual comment, if you can.

 

And this for someone that real solid science finally disproved his half-baked psych proclamations on gulf war syndrome just last year:

https://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/articles/year-2022/sarin-nerve-gas-gulf-war-illness.html

I wonder if this could have any relevance to ME/CFS and pesticides?