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Wessely on BBC radio psychology programme

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Last night Simon Wessely featured repeatedly on the BBC Radio 4 programme All in the Mind. It's repeated today at 1530 UK time and you can listen online from here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s8cpf

(It was not about ME or 'somatic' conditions, but there was a piece on the DSM on which he commented.)

I hadn't known whether he was going to be on, and when I heard the name I wasn't sure whether it was the SW who has caused us so much harm. But as I listened on, I became more sure that it was. It was particularly his belief that psychotherapists have to maintain obvious emotional distance, as not to do so would be 'unprofessional', and also his exaggeration and distortion of what people had said. This was the item on whether it was OK if therapists were so moved by what patients said that tears welled in their eyes.

Wessely referred to this as 'bursting into tears' and 'sobbing'! Unsurprisingly he also said that it had never happened to him.

I wonder whether he was born without empathy or whether he had to develop the traditional British 'stiff upper lip' for some reason. Or could it just be that he clings to the outdated power imbalance of the therapist-patient relationship, which is now recommended against?

You can email the programme at allinthemind@bbc.co.uk
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
I have sent my email.

Another thing of interest in relation to ME is that he insisted vehemently (in the DSM piece) that psychiatrists were not classifying normal feelings as mental illness in order to get more work, because funding for psychiatry was decreasing, so the last thing they needed was more work (or words to that effect).
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
Just hoping their dwindling funds are being diverted into real science/medical research. The man and his ilk are a nightmare of confusion. (Failure to distinguish I note in my dictionary).
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
My take is funding is dwindling because a lot of things are falling out of favour, especially psychogenic medicine. In bad spy movies the villain then goes on a funding run, creating a crisis where there isn't one. That is how I regard the BPS model, a "solution" to problems that sometimes don't exist and is not a solution either. Psychogenic medicine seems to be dying, but I am not sure about basic services regarding things like depression and schizophrenia. If those are in decline, then society is in for a bad time.

The flings at ME and GWS etc. from psychogenic proponents are failing to make converts amongst hard core scientists. When "recovered" and "normal" and "severely disabled" refer to the same people, based on objective outcomes, you know there is a problem. It seems that amongst scientists the psychobabble might be a bit of a joke, or at least it is for some (like Snell).
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
Yep but didn't we know that all along and will now real science/medicine put them firmly in their place - empathy - just we haven't a clue but feel for you. Not good enough I do not want empathy but science/scientists to continue to unravel the biological pathologies involved in e.g. ME. Psychiatry cannot.

Should be a bit brighter (it is well recognised needed to be in Neurology, Immunology etc) Is the crying he speaks of a reflection of their own inabilities until scientific advances can inform them better. Probably. But their nauseous creep sickens far too many.- coat-tail people only.
 

sianrecovery

Senior Member
Messages
828
Location
Manchester UK
Face it, chaps. The guy's an utter knobhead. And if that belief makes a) delusional b) a dangerous radical, I guess I'll just have to live with being on someone's list. There's an old Italian proverb, that translates something like - you wrestle with pigs, you get dirty, and they enjoy it.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
Face it, chaps. The guy's an utter knobhead. And if that belief makes a) delusional b) a dangerous radical, I guess I'll just have to live with being on someone's list. There's an old Italian proverb, that translates something like - you wrestle with pigs, you get dirty, and they enjoy it.

Show some respect now. Professor Sir Knobhead, if you please.
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
I listened to the above at the time of the broadcast. He doesn't sound like I thought he would. There was also some very intereting debate about psychiatric/psychological/mental illness and the DSM in the following programme yesterday. Worth a listen to hear what two opposing elements - one a psychologist and the other a psychiatrist - think about it all:

"The psychiatrist's diagnostic bible is to be updated later this month, and Tom Burns and Richard Bentall discuss the controversies that continue to dog the world of psychiatry."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01sd3jq