Who is Simon Wessely?

Discussion in 'Psychosomatic news - ME/CFS and Long Covid' started by Sly Saint, Nov 13, 2017.

  1. Maat

    Maat Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  2. Maat

    Maat Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    No access Liability for psychiatric illness - ScienceDirect Liability for psychiatric illness, Wessely S, Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Volume 39, Issue 6, 1995, Pages 659-669,
    ISSN 0022-3999,
    https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3999(95)00067-S.
    (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/002239999500067S)

    This paper is cited in a 2010 discussion about the Page v Smith case

    THE PAGEv. SMITH SAGA: A TALE OF INAUSPICIOUS ORIGINS AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES | The Cambridge Law Journal | Cambridge Core
     
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  3. Valerie Eliot Smith

    Valerie Eliot Smith Established Member (Voting Rights)

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    A bit of background in link below: short version of the Page v Smith case (from 2014 blog post).

    Not sure how this fits with Simon's argument (haven't tried to access that paper yet) but the final result in this case wasn't particularly helpful for PwME's:

    https://valerieeliotsmith.com/2014/03/13/a-very-short-page-update/
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2024
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  4. Maat

    Maat Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Thanks Valerie. I remember reading your view of it quite a while ago, but I'll refresh my memory on it now. My first thoughts, depending on what he's arguing, went to Article 8 Access to Justice.
     
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  5. Maat

    Maat Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    :rofl: I remember this, absolutely brilliant!
     
  6. bobbler

    bobbler Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Poor them , yes it’s like having to calmly say (so people don’t accuse you of jumping the gun) they are being required to play along with expecting a tiger to suddenly not tiger for the first time in their life when someone chose to put the tiger there knowing what they were

    I think the letter does a good job of walking this line and was important for them to get as public as possible
     
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  7. Peter Trewhitt

    Peter Trewhitt Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Rhi Belle, as far as I can tell, is a Scottish nurse working in the aesthetic (cosmetic) field. She gives an impressively thorough and detailed overview of Sir Simon’s career, which has been built on imbalanced and prejudicial approaches to such as ME/CFS and Gulf War Syndrome. As far as I am aware it provides a critical but accurate account that is perhaps surprisingly well researched for someone outside such as ME advocacy.

    It is a full account that I had to read in several chunks that should be required reading for anyone interested in Sir Simon’s involvement in a number of clinical fields and in the light of this sounds a credible warning about his potentially partisan and imbalanced approach to trans issues. When the media in general, following the Science Media Centre party line, provides mostly sycophantic adulation, it is hearting that others outside our small world also see the harm he has caused.
     
  8. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

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    sanism

    New word to me. But a good one.
     
  9. Ash

    Ash Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    It is very useful.
     
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  10. Amw66

    Amw66 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    A bit of a key question - the tweet is a response to Rhi Belle' s tweet , but it's worth deeper consideration.

    I don't know how helpful SW has been within his own mental health specialism
    He has been truly brilliant at expanding and monetising a sphere of influence .

    https://twitter.com/user/status/1849353537496449480


    Is there a clinically vulnerable/socially marginalised group whose lives Wessely hasn't made worse?
     
  11. Maat

    Maat Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Simon Wessely: ‘ECT is in my own advance directive’ | MHT

    Simon Wessely: ‘ECT is in my own advance directive’
    Barney Cullum
    22 August 2018


    Professor Simon Wessely, chair of this year's Mental Health Act review, discusses issues including treatment preferences, advance notices and consent in an exclusive interview with Mental Health Today.


     
  12. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Attached Files:

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  13. Jonathan Edwards

    Jonathan Edwards Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I am not sure of the relevance of what is said in that quote. There was a question as to whether one should be able to make an advance decision to refuse ECT. Wessely then replies that he has made an advance decision to have ECT if needed. What he says is sound but it seems irrelevant to the question.

    I am not sure why anyone should want to decide in advance not to have ECT. It is life saving when needed.
     
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  14. Lou B Lou

    Lou B Lou Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    There was a Very early PACE Trial protocol published on the net, which is difficult to find now. I cannot remember the full name of it. The patient participant entry criteria from that was one of the things patients publicly criticised. So the content of that protocol was what patients started criticising early on, before the first participant was recruited etc..

    .
     
  15. Sean

    Sean Moderator Staff Member

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    Do you mean the PACE Trial Identifier? See attached file.
     

    Attached Files:

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  16. Lou B Lou

    Lou B Lou Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Yes! That's it. Does anyone know the date it was published?
     
  17. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Thoughts? Too harsh? Fair? Seen on Bluesky.
     
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  18. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I find it very appropriate. "Your body my, choice" is a rallying cry following the US election, which all but guaranteed that abortion will soon be made illegal in the US. The slogan for abortion rights is "My body, my choice", and this turns it on its head, has become very popular as mockery from people who enjoy seeing other people suffer. It of course has a double meaning in condoning sexual assault, but that meaning is usually kept a not-so-subtle secret.

    Which all, IMO, perfectly mirrors what the biopsychosocial is doing. And is a clever campaign. I don't think it would change much, but it is a fair framing that makes it clear what is on the line. I would expect physicians to react to this about the same way as those who voted for this are to the political rallying cry. Which only shows that they don't actually value bodily autonomy. Only when they happen to agree with the intent of the autonomy. Basically it's "your choice, but I will veto it if you choose wrong". Or, in our case, simply give you no choice, because they think they understand our subjective experience of reality better than we do. Which is insane and ridiculous.

    Many thousands of people have made it loud and clear to people like Wessely that what they do to us is harmful. They don't care. Their thinking is perfectly equivalent to "your body, my choice". There is really little actual support for bodily autonomy in health care. Not for real. It's the autonomy they agree to. Which has expanded significantly in recent decades, it's on loan, but just like things like abortion rights can be politically turned upside down, so can those. Rights that can be denied. Duties that are optional. Not much difference when everything is political in nature.
     
  19. JellyBabyKid

    JellyBabyKid Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I read some where, probably on here, that someone said "Sir's career is more important than my life" and my God, I felt that.

    So many of my choices have been taken away because medicine refuses to listen to, believe and prioritise our reality. A small group of people with so much power and influence have doomed millions of us to a shadow existence.

    Until we have a Post Office moment and people realise that this could happen to them too and are absolutely outraged, nothing will change.

    Even with so many healthcare workers affected, organised and angry TPTB still manage to maintain the status quo.

    I have no idea how we change it.

    There are no words to describe the incandescent rage I feel at the waste of mine and other people's potential because of this situation, and now amplified by the current direction of travel in politics and public discourse.
     
  20. Turtle

    Turtle Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    "Sir" has otherized us in the medical world.

    And the medical world has embrased it and acted on it.

    Know nothing, don't study anything about ME/CFS and keep pointing to Sir and our heads.

    Grote griebels. (Dutch) Just try and pronounce it, same as :banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:
     
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