MAGICAL MEDICINE: HOW TO MAKE AN ILLNESS ... - Invest in ME

“Social factors
21
“Several of the functional somatic syndromes, including chronic fatigue syndrome, GWS (Gulf War Syndrome) and
repetitive strain injury have gained public credibility in spite of widespread medical scepticism as to their very
existence. This phenomenon has been attributed to changes within society, including the erosion of the physician’s
traditional role…Patient support groups…may have some negative consequences, for example, membership of a chronic
fatigue syndrome support group has been associated with poorer prognosis (Bentall et al 2002, Sharpe et al 1992).
The financial ‘reward’ to be gained from disability payments or litigation has been argued as playing a role in the
maintenance of ill health in those suffering from functional somatic syndromes…For example being in receipt of
sickness benefit has been shown to be a poor prognostic sign in chronic fatigue syndrome (Bentall et al 2002, Cope et al
1994).
“Treatments
“Psychosocial treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy have been shown to be beneficial in a range of
somatoform disorders…including the most researched functional somatic syndromes (i.e. chronic fatigue syndrome,
irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia).
“Conclusion
“The functional somatic syndromes share many similarities in terms of symptomatic overlap and effective treatments
as well as non‐symptomatic characteristics; these observations imply that it may be unhelpful to regard each as a
separate condition”.
The book won the 2008 British Medical Association prize in Mental Health and, as customary with books
ascribing ME/CFS to a somatoform disorder, it received glowing reviews, for example:
• “All budding and established liaison psychiatrists should have this manual and medical libraries should stock
it” (British Medical Journal)
• “It will be essential reading for liaison psychiatrists, liaison nurses, other members of the mental health team
and services managers” (Clinical Medicine Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London)
• “This book is a very welcome addition to liaison psychiatry literature. It is the first really comprehensive
textbook of liaison psychiatry by authors predominantly working in the UK….Were I to recommend a single
liaison psychiatry textbook, it would be this one” (The British Journal of Psychiatry).
Given that the book contains so much misinformation about ME/CFS, these reviews are troubling.
Apparently unheeding of the WHO, Wessely remains adamant that “CFS/ME” is the same disorder as
neurasthenia.
As recently as 2009 he wrote: “I run a clinic for sufferers with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), sometimes also
called myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), and known to a previous generation of neurologists as neurasthenia”
(Wessely S [2009]. Surgery for the treatment of mental illness: the need to test untested theories.
http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/trial_records/20th_Century/1920s/kopeloff/kopeloff‐commentary.html).
The Wessely School often assert that it is only patients who disagree with their hypothesis (which instantly
confers disparagement upon patients), but they do not refer to the countless mainstream psychiatrists,
psychologists, neuroscientists, immunologists and other biomedical scientists who certainly disagree with
their hypothesis (see Co‐Cure RES: 14 th September 2009, and see also Section 2 below).