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Professor Simon Wessely says he is misunderstood

Daisymay

Senior Member
Messages
754
Posted on behalf of Margaret Williams, permission to repost:


http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/Wessely-is-misunderstood.htm


Professor Simon Wessely says he is misunderstood

Margaret Williams 27th November 2012



On his up-dated website (“Misunderstandings and Misperceptions” http://www.simonwessely.com/misund.html) Simon Wessely writes about the BMJ 2002 poll of “non-diseases” and states: “I had nothing to do with the poll or choice of subject, nor did I suggest ME or CFS as a non disease”. It was, however, commonly understood at the time from sources close to him that he was involved with the BMJ poll and, given his own record, it may not be unreasonable to believe that he was involved with it.

He certainly wrote in support of the poll (BMJ 27th February 2002): “The BMJ’s decision to extend participatory democracy to the question of disease – legitimate or otherwise, is important not so much for the results (which along with bags under the eyes, freckles, big ears and gap teeth, included ME/CFS in the BMJ’s list of suggested non-diseases best left medically untreated) but because it happened at all”.

Wessely went on to discuss: “how professions control and define their authority”, asking “why the outrage exhibited by so many of the correspondents?”.

He continued: “I suspect it comes from a failure to recognise different concepts of illness and disease….Let us take the example of chronic fatigue syndrome…Few now could question that CFS is indeed an illness….But is it a disease?...Is CFS a disease?...Not yet….Previously apparently sound entities lose their disease status under the cold light of scientific scrutiny….Crudely handled, medicalisation can perpetuate disability”.

On 17th June 2002 The Times (online) published an article quoting Wessely: “Many of the conditions recognised today were unheard of in the past, from allergies to chronic fatigue syndrome. ‘People are increasingly likely to see their symptoms as representing some potentially serious and certainly biomedical process’ says Wessely, who believes that this can be misleading at best and dangerous at worst”.

From the above, it is difficult not to conclude that Wessely agreed with the poll’s findings in relation to ME/CFS, especially as he is on record as arguing that ME is merely “a belief” that one has a disease called ME and that it is “part of the world of myth” (9th Eliot Slater Memorial Lecture, 12th May 1994).

In an article in the Independent in Sunday calling for him to be stripped of the inaugural John Maddox Prize (ME: bitterest row yet in long saga; 25th November 2012), Wessely stated: “I have never said that CFS is all in the mind. I do not believe that, and have never written that”.

Given this clarification from Wessely himself, it is curious that Wessely gave the keynote lecture at “The International Congress on Somatisation Disorders – New Approaches and Treatment” in Marburg, Germany held on 21-24 February 2002, and that his lecture (on 23rd February 2002) was entitled “The chronic fatigue syndrome and the ‘S word’ ”. The definition of somatoform disorder is “emotional distress experienced as physical symptoms”. At that same congress, on 21st February 2002 Professor Michael Sharpe spoke on “Management of somatoform syndromes in primary care”, describing them as “somatic symptoms without evidence of disease”.

It is even more curious that on 10th April 2002, in written answers to questions put to him by Trevor Wainwright (one being why he classified (ME)CFS as a somatoform disorder when ICD-10 classifies it as a neurological disorder), Wessely wrote: “I don’t classify CFS as a somatoform disorder”.

Certainly Wessely’s colleagues are on record stating that Wessely regards ME/CFS as “somatisation par excellence” (J Psychosom Res 1994:38:2:89-98).


It will remembered that the original PACE Trial CBT Manual for Therapists of June 2002 (of which Wessely was a co-author) says: “CBT is based on a cognitive behavioural model of CFS. According to the model the symptoms and disability of CFS are perpetuated predominantly by dysfunctional illness beliefs and coping behaviours. These beliefs and behaviours interact with the patient's emotional and physiological state and interpersonal situation to form self-perpetuating vicious circles of fatigue and disability”.

It would be hard to find a better description of a somatoform disorder.

In answer to another question posed by Trevor Wainwright (“How do you manage to manipulate the broadsheet press to perpetuate your views even when the Chief Medical Officer won’t support (them)?”, Wessely said: “What a question… The real scandal is that most of the coverage of CFS/ME is the usual junk science and exaggerated claims made by people with financial interests”.

On 19th December 2002 one internationally known psychiatrist wrote about Wessely’s discrepant statements about the same issue: “Considering the thrust of his views there seems to me to be deception hiding behind semantics” (personal communication).

Who could argue with that?
 

Firestormm

Senior Member
Messages
5,055
Location
Cornwall England
Perhaps everyone who is interested should at least read his blog instead of relying on an 'interpretation' when some of the things being challenged by Wessely (including the misquotes) have perhaps originated with or been promoted by the preceding source:

Simon Wessely: http://www.simonwessely.com/misund.html

MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND MISPERCEPTIONS

In the companion essay I gave a swift whistle stop tour of my work in CFS. Perhaps I ought just to leave it there. But unfortunately out there is an alternative reality, since it would naive of me to pretend that anyone who decides to look up my work “cold” via the internet, and not the journals, might stumble across some stuff that seems to be saying the opposite to what I have described above.

The reason is that for 20 years a very small group of people have targeted me and many of my colleagues because of our work on chronic fatigue syndrome. This has involved their making a series of allegations portraying all of us as guilty of a vast range of nefarious conduct, and who are part of a spider’s wet of conspiracies, all designed to do down, denigrate and demean those with this illness.

So far, we rarely answer these allegations. To do so gives them more credit than they deserve. The impact of this constant drip of allegation, distortion, innuendo and guilt by association has been minimal within medicine and science, unless one includes scientists who have been dissuaded from getting involved as a result. Most people immediately spot all this stuff for what it is. And all of us have better things to do with our time than respond to it, especially given that the material runs to dozens and dozens of different pieces, many of them 400 hundred pages long, and nearly all of it coming from the same handful of people.

So why break the habits of a life-time? The problem is that many people do not have ready access to the real evidence (by which I mean what myself and my colleagues have actually written, not what these people say we have written). So I have decided to address just a few of these unpleasant allegations, for the benefit of those who wish to know the truth. For those interest in a more forensic dissection of how quotes from one of our papers can be manipulated and distorted see the following discussion on the Bad Science forum.

Allegation: “In 1989 Wessely abused his position on the Medical Research Council (MRC) to ensure that £1,000,000 of ring-fenced money went to his friends at the Institute of Psychiatry”

The reality: The IOP was awarded a grant of £95,000 for work into postviral fatigue syndrome in 1989. I was not part of this grant. I did not join an MRC Board until 1998. It would always have been impossible for me to have anything to do with any matter concerning my own institution.

Allegation: “All the MRC money for CFS has gone to Wessely”

The reality: I have so far received 67 grants, five of which were from the MRC. Only one of these was related to CFS . I was not the principal investigator (PI), the total amount was £150,000, and none of it came to my department/institution, but to the department of the PI. All of this can be easily checked via the MRC Annual Reports.

Allegation: “Wessely blocks the MRC from funding biomedical research into ME”.

The reality: Between 1998 and 2002 I was a member of the Neurosciences Panel, which was the principal body for allocating funds in neurosciences and mental health. During that time I don’t recall seeing a single application for biomedical research into CFS/ME. It is possible that there were, and I have no recollection of them if so. As it is, applications for work in areas such as virology, immunology, physiology, biochemistry, proteonomics etc. would have gone to another panel anyway.

Allegation: “The patients that are seen at King’s don’t have CFS and/or ME.

The reality: This is not so much insulting to me and my colleagues, but to the patients that we see. Here is our response to this claim, published last year in PLOS One.

“Overall, we wish to emphasis, and to do so emphatically, that our patients are typical of CFS patients seen in specialist care elsewhere. We refute the suggestion that our patients are in some way more “psychiatric”, whatever that means, than those with “real CFS”, an assertion that has been repeatedly made in other venues.

The rates of co morbid psychiatric disorder, for which we routinely screen, are again similar to those seen elsewhere. We draw attention to another study that compared two services run in the same London teaching hospital, one by an immunologist, the other a psychiatrist, but showed no fundamental differences between the two (White et al, 2004). On behalf of the patients that attend our CFS clinic, we resent the implication that they are in some way different, less ill, less disabled, let alone less deserving, than CFS patients in any other service or setting. It is otherwise, and we have provided a wealth of published data to back this assertion.” PLOSONE ANN.

Allegation: “Their patients do not show abnormalities on laboratory testing, unlike genuine ME patients.

The reality: Here is our response in the same paper:

“In addition we also perform tests as part of research protocols. We always tell patients that these additional tests and investigations are not necessary clinically, and are performed with informed consent. Thus patients in our service have also co-operated in studies of PET and fMRI neuroimaging, autonomic dysfunction, neurochemistry, respiratory function, vitamin status, anti-nuclear antibodies, immune function, neuroendocrine function and genetics (see references).

“Hence it is untrue to state that patients at King’s for example do not show alterations in immune function – in fact they do - see Skowera et al, High levels of type 2 cytokine-producing cells in chronic fatigue syndrome." Clinical and Experimental Immunology 2004: 135: 294-302. Similarly, many of our patients also show altered neuroendocrine, neurochemical and other biological parameters, and we have published many examples of these (see references below).

It is therefore simply untrue that we either seek to find no biological changes in CFS, or fail to report those that we do find.
“As the publications list shows, we have pushed multiple studies that look for biomarkers for CFS, and have found positive findings of both neuroendocrine and immunological dysfunction. Unfortunately none of these are specific enough to serve as a diagnostic test.”

Allegation: “Wessely threw a boy into a swimming pool to see whether he would sink or swim”.

The reality:

In 1988 I was a senior registrar in psychiatry at the National Hospital for Neurology. A child had been admitted unable to walk or speak. I was asked to assess him as part of my regular duties, which I did. My intervention was to get him transferred as rapidly as possible from the ward on which he was, which was an adult ward largely full of people with advanced neurological diseases such as motor neuron disease and multiple sclerosis, and get him admitted to Great Ormond Street hospital next door.

I did not see the child again. Some month later I was asked by social services to provide a report to support the care proceedings that had been brought by child protection services elsewhere, which I did. Needless to say, I have never thrown this child, or any other, into a swimming pool.

Allegation: “Wessely is an officer/paid employee/advisor/share holder/board members etc. for UNUM”

The reality:

I have never worked for UNUM, an insurance company. I have never advised them, never owned any shares, never been on a board. I have given two talks for UNUM. One was in London in 1995 and was about CFS, the other was in 2007 and wasn’t.

Allegation: “Wessely worked for PRISMA”.

The reality:

PRISMA was a small German company that was providing rehabilitation services for people on long term permanent health insurance, including CFS. I joined their supervisory board in 1999, because they wanted to set up a research programme. This is similar to being a non executive director in a UK company. I attended two board meetings in Germany, for which I received expenses. After about a year or so it became clear that they were not going to do research, so I resigned. I have had no connection with them for the last decade. All of this was declared in my publications at the time.

Allegation: “Wessely advises the Department of Work and Pensions and as a result patients are denied benefits”

The reality:

This is the response from the Department of Work and Pensions when the above allegation was made:
“Professor Simon Wessely has not been involved in the development of CFS/ME guidance but has advised with guidance developed for some psychiatric conditions. He has served as a member of Dame Carol Black’s working group on employment”.

In 2012 a letter surfaced in the National Archives that I wrote in 1992 to the Chief Medical Officer of what was then the Department of Social Security, on the subject of CFS in which I was lobbying for a change in Disablement Living Allowance guidelines on CFS. I had forgotten about this letter, and it is attached here for completeness. It is clear that I was supporting patients and writing at the request of one of the patient charities, arguing that the proposed changes might harm sufferers.

Award Letter 1992

And:

MISQUOTATIONS AND DISTORTIONS.

One of the principal tactics that has been used against me and many of my colleagues is to manipulate quotes from our writings in order to reverse the meanings and show us in an unattractive light. Here follows a few examples of such distortions, all coming from the same sources. I have added the emphasis so you can see where the quote actually is.

“Wessely says that ME patients are neurotic and he will often be disgusted with them”

Here is the full quote, from a chapter I wrote in a WHO book in 1990:

“The absence of abnormal tests leads to the erroneous conclusion that nothing is wrong, or alternatively to the understandable but misguided tendency to over interpret minor abnormalities or variants. The description given by a leading gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic remains accurate: "the average doctors will see they are neurotic, and he will often be disgusted with them. Often he sends them away with as little ceremony as possible" (Alvarez, 1935). Thus, attitudes towards psychiatric illness affect both patient and doctor with equally adverse effects on prognosis"

I was quoting Walter Alvarez, a physician at the Mayo Clinic in 1935. He disproved of the way in many patients presenting with what would now be called CFS were dealt with, and continued “and yet these poor people suffer the tortures of the damned”. I was suggesting that nothing much had changed over the years to 1990, and the harm that this does to patients, that having no abnormal tests does not mean that nothing is wrong, and that doctors must always treat sufferers with respect.

“Wessely views ME patients as an unavoidable, untreatable and unattractive burden”

Here is the full quote:

Patients with inexplicable physical symptoms are generally viewed as an unavoidable, untreatable and unattractive burden. However, by adopting an approach that considers physical, psychological and environmental factors it becomes possible to make sense of at least some of the symptoms. With improved communications, a therapeutic relationship may be developed which permits the introduction of techniques to reduce the patient’s symptoms, distress and disability , in other words to practice medicine which allows change to be brought about” ((Brit J Hosp Med 1994:51:8:421-427)

“Wessely views CFS patients as foolish, uncomprehending, hysterical or malingering”

Here is the full quote again so you can see the context:

“The causes of many health problems remain a mystery despite the advances of modern medicine. When a medical explanation is slow in coming, patients often infer that events (and perhaps people) are responsible for their condition. They may then judge harshly anyone who does not take their condition and inferences seriously. Physicians, officials, and companies often bear the brunt of this anger. For example, in the controversies surrounding chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf war sickness, and cancer clusters, authorities who denied sufferers’ claims met with scorn and contempt.

Patients naturally want explanations and treatments for their ill health. Professionals, on the other hand, want to be sure about the diagnosis before acting, fearing the monetary and health costs of treating hypothetical conditions. But however justified hesitation may be medically, it can seem callous to patients. They may begin to doubt the integrity of doctors and see them as indifferent to their plight. The ensuing anger of patients will add to the mutual misunderstanding. No one wants to be distrusted. It is therefore only human for doctors and scientists to want to pull back from a hostile public or to view the public as foolish, uncomprehending, hysterical, or malingering. If such professionals speak less, or less respectfully, to the public, their credibility may decline further. They may eventually avoid health problems associated with hostile patients, expensive lawsuits, and government inquiries. This allows opportunists to fill the void, fanning patients’ discontent and hawking dubious remedies. ((BMJ 2003:326:595-597)

“Wessely believes CFS Is a Non Disease”

Here is the claim, again from the same sources as before: “In summary, Simon Wessely is on record as affirming that ME is a “myth” and a “non-existent disease”: between February and April 2002 the BMJ ran a poll of “non-diseases” with which Wessely is widely known to have been involved and to have proposed ME as a “non-disease”..

I had nothing to do with the poll or choice of subject, nor did I suggest ME or CFS as a non disease. I wrote a letter in response arguing the opposite, this is its conclusion:

“But more commonly the act of giving a name to symptoms and disability brings relief. The acknowledgement by the medical profession that a patient's condition has a name and is a legitimate illness is immensely reassuring and enabling. It also ends the battle of diagnosis—“If you have to prove you are ill you can't get well.”. Giving a condition a name is an intervention in itself with costs and benefits. Crudely handled, medicalisation can perpetuate disability and exclusion. But used constructively and appropriately it is the first step towards recoveryBMJ EXTRACT

First time I've actually visited his website. There's this also - if anyone wants to read it:
CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT which talks about his involvement with the condition from year dot and must be the 'companion essay' he refers to at the top of the post above.

I will need to read everything, including Margaret's initiating response tomorrow. Am bushed today.
 

user9876

Senior Member
Messages
4,556
Allegation: “Wessely threw a boy into a swimming pool to see whether he would sink or swim”.

The reality:

In 1988 I was a senior registrar in psychiatry at the National Hospital for Neurology. A child had been admitted unable to walk or speak. I was asked to assess him as part of my regular duties, which I did. My intervention was to get him transferred as rapidly as possible from the ward on which he was, which was an adult ward largely full of people with advanced neurological diseases such as motor neuron disease and multiple sclerosis, and get him admitted to Great Ormond Street hospital next door.

I did not see the child again. Some month later I was asked by social services to provide a report to support the care proceedings that had been brought by child protection services elsewhere, which I did. Needless to say, I have never thrown this child, or any other, into a swimming pool.

I always thought Ean Proctor story was about the way children with ME were (and still are) treated. The acusations against Wessely were that he was involved in his initial diagnosis and sectioning rather than the abuse that he suffered in the hospital on the isle of man.

CFS Central have a report
http://www.cfscentral.com/2010/06/hard-cell.html
Which points to Wessely's medical advice which I believe is for sectioning rather than care proceedings.
http://mindykitei.cfscentral.home.comcast.net/~mindykitei.cfscentral/letters/Wessely, June 10, 1988.pdf

Perhaps this also gives indications as to how he sees ME?

Maybe acusations get exagerated but I wonder if the responses are also being spun. Reading the letter that he wrote it sounds like a pervasive refusal syndrome diagnosis without the name. Which is commonly given to children with ME who have been ill for too long, not as far as I know by Wessley, but by an "expert paediatrician".
 
Messages
13,774
I've not got time to look at this properly, and only read the bits from Wessely.

I did a quick google for some of the allegations he was refuting, and could not find them having been made in the manner he quoted (this was only a very quick search, so I could well have missed something).

Something like this: “All the MRC money for CFS has gone to Wessely” seems crazy, and I've not seen anyone make that claim. Actually, it seems so crazy that if I saw such a claim, I'd assume it was meant as hyperbole rather than something to be taken literally.

re UNUM: He didn't mention his contribution to their CMO's report, which I already posted here: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...essely-and-all-in-the-mind.13979/#post-232006

Maybe he missed other things out too.

re his correspondence with Aylward and the DWP: It was much more than one letter, and from what I remember he was arguing against classing ME as a neurological condition, and insisting he would organise a campaign against the DWP's classifications for mental health disorders if they were to class ME in this way. I understand that some further info has been released recently, but I've still not looked through it, I think some details should be available here: http://valerieeliotsmith.wordpress....he-secret-files-on-mecfs-wessely-and-the-wok/

Also - Aylward was clearly a key figure in the recent benefits reforms, and was working at the UNUM Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research. In White's book on Biopsychosocial medicine Aylward, Wessely, White and Chalder are all chatting amongst each other as if they know each other - it seems rather strange for Wessely, a key promoter of BPS approaches to disability, to be acting as if he had no role in the DWP's move to a BPS approach to disability benefits.

re his Personal Story: I wrote an initial response to that here: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?entries/simon-wesselys-personal-story-annotated.1054/

I've been meaning to go back to it and add in some references, as it started just being my thought as I went along reading Wessely's piece, but ended up being even long than what Wessely had written.

There definitely are problems with people taking Wessely quotes out of context in a misleading way. His in context alternatives often seem worse to me though.
 
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15,786
Maybe acusations get exagerated but I wonder if the responses are also being spun.

I agree. I have never heard anyone say he threw the kid in the pool, but rather that he was involved in his mis-diagnosis that led to the mis-treatment at the hands of others.

I think he's exaggerating these claims to make us sound nuts, and to make himself sound more wronged. If he's going to complain about ME patients misquoting him, he should be careful to avoid doing the same. But his "misunderstood" page sounds like yet another excuse for him to take a swing at ME patients.
 

snowathlete

Senior Member
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5,374
Location
UK
Maybe acusations get exagerated but I wonder if the responses are also being spun. Reading the letter that he wrote it sounds like a pervasive refusal syndrome diagnosis without the name.

I agree, it's hard to know what is fact, I expect the truth lies somewhere between the two stories. One clear fact is that this is a phyciatrist heavily involved with ME/CFS over the years, despite the fact that it has been classed as Neurological by WHO since the 60s, and the fact that it is clear to any lay-man who takes the time to look properly, that this is not a psycological illness. That alone, rings alarm bells.

He clearly feels strongly that he has been misunderstood. If that is so, would he support a formal and independant review to establish and expose the facts?
Either, he is guilty of these things as some claim in which case there should be some action, or he is a victim in all this and that ought to be corrected.


One thing i find strange on his site is this quote:
I have never worked for UNUM, an insurance company. I have never advised them, never owned any shares, never been on a board. I have given two talks for UNUM. One was in London in 1995 and was about CFS, the other was in 2007 and wasn’t.


If he was paid to do those talks (which I assume would be the norm), then he has been employed by UNUM, surely?
 
Messages
95
If he was paid to do those talks (which I assume would be the norm), then he has been employed by UNUM, surely?

He'd bury that in semantics as an 'appearance fee' probably. Selling his services as an orator. It probably stands up legally too. Bit like a band playing a gig more than once at the same pub.

But the repetition probably is grounds for a developing COI.

Edit: Oh I just wanted to add, I think PD White's links with Unum might be a tad more interesting, but it's been a while since I've trawled through those walls of text.
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
Yeah, he's as "misunderstood" as my anal bean trumpet playing "Colonel Bogie" as we march past him an' his cronies, giving them all the "salute"!
Prrrrbbbrbbrbbbbbrbbb! :p

tumblr_m6a92mQJWQ1r35e5l.jpg


 

Sean

Senior Member
Messages
7,378
“I have never said that CFS is all in the mind. I do not believe that, and have never written that”.

The above quote is a good example of the absolutist straw men he deliberately sets up to misrepresent his critics.

Read it carefully: He is not saying that CFS is not primarily psychogenic.

Slippery as ever.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
I didn't conspire with aliens. I didn't work as a PR man for a major drug cartel. I didn't invent a time machine and go back in time to plagiarize future writers before they wrote their opus magnus.

Denials are indeed slippery. What are they denying?

I believe I do recall some comment about Wessely throwing a child in a pool, probably Ean Proctor. This was then corrected. I do think people do misunderstand him some of the time, but thats to be expected. So Simon is quite correct when his statement is taken out of context ... and its beside the point. We do understand a lot of the hypothetical psychogenic views that are being pushed as fact. This whole argument is a diversionary tactic though not an unreasonable thing for someone in his position to do.

Quoting someone out of context is always going to happen though not desirable. Context is far more than just the few sentences before or after a comment, or the paragraph before or after as well. From a linguistic point of view context is the surrounding text and argument. From a systems theory point of view context is just a simplification, to get perspective you need to look at a large range of factors. The world view, arguments, logic, circumstances and interactions with other factors are all important. To understand the impact of a few sentences from someone you need to look at their history, their training, all their text you can find, the arguments used, the patterns of arguments, the logical fallacies made and ignored, and whether or not an argument is rational or uses emotional rhetoric. Even then I am just giving a snapshot - we are never going to understand him, just as he is never going to understand us. The best we can do is to get close to the truth.

Similarly I do think he receives hate mail and probably threatening letters. I don't dispute that as its to be expected, though again not desirable. How this is spun in the media is the concern. That is what needs to be addressed. Such mail etc. cannot be prevented, though it can be dissuaded to some extent. Its not desirable socially, its not desirable for advocacy, and it may sometimes be illegal. What can be done though is to put it in perspective.

One of the things that concerns me is the language used in a lot of this by proponents of the biopsychosocial view have flexible meanings. In one perspective they mean one thing, in another they mean something else. When we isolate some quote we take one meaning. When proponents isolate a quote they are free to comment on the meaning differently in different circumstances. One of the things I am going to be looking for is how the meaning of the words changes in different circumstances. I will also be looking for the meaning of the words to change in the middle of an argument. An argument might sound good, but if the meaning of a word at the start is different to the meaning at the finish, then its not a valid argument.

On emotional rhetoric I will have much more to say over time, I am still doing investigation.

I am all for using anger or any other emotion to give impetus to advocacy. This needs direction though, and direction should be based on reason not emotion. They work together. Emotion is about why we do things to an extent, reason is about what we do. Pure reason can not motivate people, and acting on emotion in the absence of reason can lead people to make unnecessary and sometimes stupid mistakes.

Bye, Alex
 

Jarod

Senior Member
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784
Location
planet earth
Who is going to out-debate a psyhiatrist? You nailed it @silverblade.
Need to be careful not to screw up the work of other adovcates though. :thumbsup:

I have to admit I just fell out of bed laughing. One really needs to play the youtube video while appreciating the artwork to get the full affect.

Things are a mess. Not just with CFS. Give everybody a few days. Tensions have gotten too high.
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
One really wants to disengage permanently with SW and all those of psyche inclinations. The scientific research findings are now in place for the pathologies found in the illness ME. There is no doubt whatsoever that he individually (through weight in UK medicine) or others who are taught or taken up (3 A&E Docs newly trained diagnosed me "just all in your mind") are the legacy left here.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
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13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Yes Jarod, I didn't quite fall out of my seat, but I did chuckle. :) Watch the (?) British commanding officer's facial expression. Early psychological warfare?

Emotion is important in political rhetoric. It reaches people who might not be prepared to engage with reason. How we target such rhetoric still has to be rational though for it to have targeted impact.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Right now I am in a major crash. I know, violins playing and this too shall pass? I only mention this as I want to get better. I am also angry. But when I read things such as posts where inappropriate words and pictures/videos are used to make a point, it makes me wonder how much these type of posts hinder any progress that might be out there and used against us.

We have to be careful about walking right into the stereotype we have all been trying to avoid.
 

Jarod

Senior Member
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Location
planet earth
Yes Jarod, I didn't quite fall out of my seat, but I did chuckle. :) Watch the (?) British commanding officer's facial expression. Early psychological warfare?

Emotion is important in political rhetoric. It reaches people who might not be prepared to engage with reason. How we target such rhetoric still has to be rational though for it to have targeted impact.

Your right Alex. We are humans. Thankfully almost everybody is rational most of the time.

It's kind of the healing process we are all going through. I think we are about over this fighting and will be much better for it later on. Need to see some real progrss though to help alieviate the presure.

When one side is totally non-compliant and has outsized power, a huge middle finger just helps get by the frustration some days.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Emotion is important in political rhetoric. It reaches people who might not be prepared to engage with reason. How we target such rhetoric still has to be rational though for it to have targeted impact.

Really?? I would say just the opposite. If someone is not prepared to engage with reason, then I think tactics like this will only serve to turn people off and like the boy who cried wolf, any statement, rational or not, will be discounted.
 

Enid

Senior Member
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3,309
Location
UK
Reason and science a thousand per cent yes - the hey but "we are just trying aid" holds nothing until people like this accept their own ignorance.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
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13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Really?? I would say just the opposite. If someone is not prepared to engage with reason, then I think tactics like this will only serve to turn people off and like the boy who cried wolf, any statement, rational or not, will be discounted.

Warning: Philosophy Alert

Tactics like this work all the time, to the total befudlement of rationalists. I believe in reason as a tool but unreason rules more than reason. It shouldn't be that way in an ideal world, but we are not living in an ideal world.

Advertising, spin, pursuasion (other than rational debate, but even then emotive issues come into play) and scams all use emotional pursuasion. So do people in everyday life. We are not rational animals. We are animals who can use reason as a tool, and a powerful tool at that, but its not the universal mode of thinking. Almost everyone can engage in some amount of rational thinking, and with training can do this much better. Any professional, including scientists, should be (but are not always) taught to reason effectively within their discipline. Most people are however never taught to reason effectively. Its a major failing of education systems everywhere. This has not very much to do with intelligence, though aspects of intelligence do permit better use of reason.

A rational world is an ideal utopia, and its my ideal utopia as well. It doesn't exist, but its always something we can work toward. I am not advocating unreasoned responses. I am advocating engaging both reason and emotion. I will be saying very much more on this next year.

Look at the recent US election. It doesn't matter who you are in favour of. How do you explain so many people passionately supporting a position other than yours? Sure, some if it might fit with enlightened self interest, the other side might offer things your side doesn't, but is this right in all cases? Is everyone being rational? Or is there just a lot of rationalizing going on? So many arguments on each side about the other being irrational do not stand up under the light of reason.

Reason is also bounded by information. Reason derives from what you know and how you process that. We know much of what we read in the media is spin, distorted or wrong, yet we still have to base our decisions on something. Most people do not have the time to be rational about very much, only topics that really interest them. Nobody can be rational about everything. We don't have the time or the motivation to do that. The best people can manage is to be as reasonable as they can about issues that are important to them.

One of the points of potential confusion from may posts my derive from my using the word emotion very broadly. Emotion does not just mean raw emotion, feelings, its also about emotional nuances. Compare these two statements. "People with CFS are lazy slackers and couldn't be bothered getting off their arse to help themselves." "People with ME are too exhausted to do very much and struggle with the basics of day to day living." Both imply that people with ME or CFS don't do very much but under that are not-so-subtle implications, including emotive implications, that reveal a person's point of view.

Bye, Alex
 

Enid

Senior Member
Messages
3,309
Location
UK
Don't agree alex - it's the history of medince involved - advances, failures - and that any current thinking Doc recognises. IF THEY HAVE THE REQUIRED HUMILITY to learn.

There is no room for chuckling when you've been through the worst the "medics" have to offer here.