CBT and CFS - Why is it so vilified in the chronic fatigue syndrome community?
If Dr Friedberg didn't already know the answer to that question before he wrote his paper then I have to ask whether he is really qualified to be writing it.
Dr Friedberg, it is far from unreasonable for CFS patients to have vilified (as you put it) CBT, because CBT has been consistently misused on them for many years, the rationale behind it having too often been that it is a way of treating the condition, not simply of helping patients come to terms with having it.
Since you yourself appear to acknowledge how regrettable this is, and are also presumably prepared to acknowledge that no other group of patients with a different biomedical condition who have been offered CBT have been offered it with a tacit assumption on the part of the people administering it that it has the potential to cure them of their core condition, why are you surprised at the vilification?
In the case of CFS patients, CBT has been misused, and patients on the receiving end of a misused treatment are justified in feeling abused.