[...] But this apparent good news was met with hostility from a minority of sufferers, who are furious at the suggestion that the answer might involve psychotherapy.
In many ways, it’s similar to how sufferers of chronic Lyme disease, which I wrote about recently, feel affronted at the suggestion that their illness is psychological in origin. One critic of the Oxford study wrote that it was suggesting sufferers were ‘making it up’, and that their experiences were being ‘belittled’ and ‘dismissed’.
But they aren’t being belittled. In fact, I’ve never met a doctor who doesn’t accept that the symptoms of ME/CFS are incredibly debilitating. It’s simply that the current medical explanation of the causes isn’t to the liking of a minority of sufferers.
To me, this says much about how society views mental illness: that it’s not as real as physical illness, not worthy of the same compassion or concern, and that people who have it just need to pull their socks up.
In fact, the majority of those with ME are very open to psychological solutions. That’s why studies like this can get large numbers of participants.
But a very vocal minority respond with extraordinary aggression, as I’ve discovered when I’ve written about this before. Not only have I been targeted and threatened, my partner, friends, agent and publisher were harassed, too. Activists even found the name of the person who ran my website and inundated her with bullying messages.
Pictures of my flat were circulated online. The police had to come to assess how secure it was and put me on a ‘rapid response’ list.
The energy these ME activists have is extraordinary. But what’s worst of all is that they pursue people who are desperate to support them. One leading researcher, Professor Simon Wessely, has now given up because of the abuse he received.
Yet Sir Simon has told me that the very reason he began his work was because, as a young doctor, he saw that sufferers were being turned away by neurologists who could find no physical basis for their problems.
He felt they were being let down, wanted to help and developed the treatment programme now endorsed by the Oxford study.
ME activists will claim that the condition’s caused by anything rather than the mind — viruses, the immune system, toxic chemicals . They’ll seek a cure from any other doctor, but not a psychiatrist.
And it’s just so misguided. [...]