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 Or could it just be that he clings to the outdated power imbalance of the therapist-patient relationship, which is now recommended against?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
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 Or could it just be that he clings to the outdated power imbalance of the therapist-patient relationship, which is now recommended against?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