Who is Simon Wessely?

NelliePledge said:
Except that Madan et various other psychosocial types Occupational Health Guidance on “CFS/ME” remains in place as the NHS guidance to employers (Occupational Health Advisers). Eg https://www.nhshealthatwork.co.uk/images/library/files/Clinical excellence/CFS_employers_leaflet.pdf


And this is still likely to be having a detrimental impact on anyone being pressured due to strict sick absence policies, frequent or long term sick absence, trying to get employers to allow reasonable adjustments such as phased return , trying to get Ill health pension.
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another one that needs updating/re-writing; @Russell Fleming
 
"The Society of Occupational Medicine ---"
EDIT following Trish's comment below - thanks Trish ---
Maybe the elements in the Society of Occupational Medicine who believe in CBT & GET want to honour the deity that is Wessley. Worrying i.e. there's no evidence that s--t works, yet these "professionals" want to honour unevidenced interventions? Hopefully they'll be held to account in tribunals etc. and discover the error in their ways.

Wessley really is something --- lauded all the way to the Lords --- yet the only objective evidence is that his theories don't work --! Sad.
 
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Occ23-text-72dpi-Booking-web-1-300x174.png

Thursday 15th June 2023
9.25 Eponymous Lecture: The 2023 Jameson Parkinson Lecture: ‘The French Have a Word for It’


Professor Sir Simon Wessely, Interim Executive Dean, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College, London


ironically followed by :

Dr Natalie Green, Managing Director, Cordell Health
First Do No Harm

Programme – Day 1 – Occupational Health (occupationalhealthconferences.com)
 
Back to the subject of SW being given honorary membership of the Society of Occupational Medicine, and tweeters objecting being blocked, there's an article by Long Covid Advocacy:

Quote:
Dear Society of Occupational Medicine, will you listen to people with M.E. and Long Covid?
Concern at the mass blocking by SOM...
We are hosting writer Kirstie Sivapalan this week who wrote an inspiring open letter to the Society of Occupational Medicine.

Patients with M.E. and Long Covid were blocked by the twitter account @SOMCEO for their valid concern regarding the awarding of honorary membership to Sir Simon Wessely. A controversial figure in the medical world.

Suppressing important patient testimony is not in the interest of common dialogue or medical discourse. We are concerned at the level of influence Wessely exerted in this act of institutional epistemic harm. Were SOM Wesslied?
[...]

In response a small team of people came together to work on an open letter written by Kirstie Sivapalan. If you want add your voice you can add your name to our open letter through this form or…

More at link.
 
Trish said:
Back to the subject of SW being given honorary membership of the Society of Occupational Medicine, and tweeters objecting being blocked, there's an article by Long Covid Advocacy:

Quote:
Dear Society of Occupational Medicine, will you listen to people with M.E. and Long Covid?
Concern at the mass blocking by SOM...
We are hosting writer Kirstie Sivapalan this week who wrote an inspiring open letter to the Society of Occupational Medicine.

Patients with M.E. and Long Covid were blocked by the twitter account @SOMCEO for their valid concern regarding the awarding of honorary membership to Sir Simon Wessely. A controversial figure in the medical world.

Suppressing important patient testimony is not in the interest of common dialogue or medical discourse. We are concerned at the level of influence Wessely exerted in this act of institutional epistemic harm. Were SOM Wesslied?
[...]

In response a small team of people came together to work on an open letter written by Kirstie Sivapalan. If you want add your voice you can add your name to our open letter through this form or…

More at link.
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Signed it. Was gonna go on an expletive-ridden rant, but I think everyone here knows who Simon Wessely is.
 
John Pring from Disability News Service is asking on Twitter,
"Many of you will know of the notorious 'Malingering and illness deception’ conference held in Woodstock, near Oxford, in November 2001, which was funded by DWP. Does anyone know the name of the hotel where the conference took place?"

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I don't know but I had a quick look, and searching for conference centres in Woodstock brought up Blenheim Palace.
I'm not 100% sure but looking at some photos it looks like a possible match, the columns, steps, windows door paving etc...

 
for info purposes
there's a youtube video (Maxwhd)



and

Don't think I've seen this before but a book also resulted from the meeting

Malingering and illness
deception

Acknowledgements
The editors gratefully acknowledge the considerable assistance provided by Kath Little, Laura
Morris, Sue Dentten and Lorraine Awcock. We would also like to thank all those contributors at
the Woodstock meeting who provided constructive comments and feedback on the presentations:
Mrs Diana Brahams, Professor Derick Wade, Dr Peter White, Professor John C. Marshall, Pro-
fessor Gordon Waddell, and Professor Richard Lewis. We are grateful to Richard Marley, Carol
Maxwell and Laura Johnstone at OUP for their editorial guidance and assistance. The meeting
which formed the basis for this book would not have been possible had it not been for the enthu-
siastic support of Professor Mansel Aylward and funding from the Department for Work and
Pensions
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List of Contributors
Mansel Aylward
Department for Work and Pensions, London, UK.
Charles Baron
Registered Specialist in Occupational Medicine, Mold, UK.
Christopher Bass
Department of Psychological Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK.
Richard Byrne
Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of
St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK.
Kenneth D. Craig
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada.
Tom Farrow
Academic Department of Psychiatry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
David Faust
Department of Psychology, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA.
Richard S. J. Frackowiak
Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology,
London, UK.
Richard I. Frederick
Department of Psychology, US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners,
Springfield, Missouri, USA.
Peter W. Halligan
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Amy Herford
Academic Department of Psychiatry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Marilyn Hill
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada.
Michael A. Jones
Liverpool Law School, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Richard Kitchen
Department for Work and Pensions, Ladywood, Birmingham, UK.
David Leung
Academic Department of Psychiatry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Judith A. Libow
Department of Psychiatry, Children’s Hospital and Research Center at Oakland,
Oakland, CA, USA
John LoCascio
UNUM Provident Insurance Company, Portland, ME, USA.
Chris J. Main
Department of Behavioural Medicine, Hope Hospital, Salford Royal Hospital,
NHS Trust, Salford, UK.
Bertram F. Malle
Institute of Cognitive and Decision Sciences and Department of Psychology,
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA.
Samantha Mann
Psychology Department, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK.
George Mendelson
Department of Psychological Medicine, Monash University, Australia.
Craig Neumann
Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA.
David A. Oakley
Department of Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
Ian P. Palmer
Royal Centre for Defence Medicine TD, Fort Blockhouse, Gasport, Hants, UK.
Loren Pankratz
Department of Psychiatry, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland,
OR, USA.
Jon Poole
Dudley Priority Health NHS Trust, Health Centre, Dudley, UK.
Lindsay Prior
Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Anna Rahman
Academic Department of Psychiatry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Adrian Raine
Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles,
CA, USA.

Becky Reilly
Academic Department of Psychiatry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
W. Peter Robinson
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Richard Rogers
Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA.
Samir Shah
Academic Department of Psychiatry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Michael Sharpe
Division of Psychiatry, School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, University
of Edinburgh, UK.
Sean Spence
Academic Department of Psychiatry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Alan Sprince
The Cayman Islands Law School, Grand Layman, B.W.I.
Emma Stokes
Scottish Primate Research Group, School of Psychology, University of
St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK.
Aldert Vrij
Psychology Department, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK.
Nicholas S. Ward
Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology,
London, UK.
Simon Wessely
Department of Psychological Medicine, GKT School of Medicine and the
Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK.
Fiona Wood
Cardiff School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
Matthew K. Wynia
Institute for Ethics at the American Medical Association, Chicago, IL, USA.
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https://disabilityclaimssolutions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Lo-Casio-Malingering-articles.pdf
 
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I'd say it is time to reform Simon Wessely.

But wasn't Wessely involved in the current act? It seems like he's been involved for so long, and he got a lot of what he wanted. Including stuff like IAPT, which is just as disastrous. So it looks to me like a politician who did a reform, then presents himself as a reformist... from his own failed reforms.

It's precisely the biopsychosocial model and how it was misapplied, the way he wants it, that is disastrous. And that's his whole thing.
 
Does anyone know where I can find early pictures of Wessely ideally a headshot from 1989 and 2002. This is the only one that I can find probably from the 90s I think.

fx1_lrg.jpg
 
don't think this video has been posted

Integrating mental and physical healthcare | Professor Sir Simon Wessely
13 May 2016 Our healthcare systems need to overcome the barrier of perceiving mind and body as separate from each other and treat the person as a whole in order to improve clinical outcomes. This talk is given by Professor Sir Simon Wessely FMedSci, Chair of Psychological Medicine, King’s College London and President, Royal College of Psychiatrists. He uses his work in psychiatry to demonstrate how improving the recognition and treatment of mental illness in patients can improve physical outcomes, for example in diabetes. Under-diagnosis and under-treatment of physical illness in mental health patients is a significant concern for the NHS, and there is still great room for improvement in integrating mental and physical healthcare. This talk is part of the Academy of Medical Sciences' 2016 FORUM Annual Lecture, held on Wednesday 6 April. Read the report about the 2016 FORUM annual lecture, ‘Breaking down the barriers between research and practice to improve productivity in the NHS': https://acmedsci.ac.uk/more/events/fo...
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We're currently having a clear-out and packing in readiness for a house move, and among a bunch of old papers I found this copy of a letter from back when I was working at a psych unit in the 1990s. At that time, I didn't yet know who Wessely was, I just found it interesting because it was about ME/CFS which I'd recently had and recovered from (temporarily, as it later turned out). Back then I tended to keep copies of the rare occasions I came across ME mentioned in print.

It's a horrifying time capsule of how, in that day, Wessely was considered 'acknowledged UK expert on chronic fatigue syndrome' and 'clinically by far the best person to deal with this specific special interest group'. We are in a small town away from the thick of things, so it shows that his influence spread far and wide even that long ago.

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Three things strike me about that letter, @EzzieD.
First, the suggestion that someone with CFS should be referred to a psychiatrist. Second that Wessely is considered the national expert. Third that people with CFS are described as a 'special interest group', not as sick people.
 
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