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BBC Radio 4: The Life Scientific with Simon Wessely, 14th Feb 2017

Messages
2,158
Talking about CFS. Showed it is a central disorder not a peripheral one. Different neuroendocrine to depression.
Asks about being hate figure.
Thinks it's because treatment by psychiatry is denigrating.
Backlash 'difficult to talk about'.
Compares us to animal rights.
Organised attempts to interfere with research - like being stalked.
 
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2,158
Decided to stop doing research on CFS.
Do you wish you'd done things differently.
Underestimated hostility to psychiatry.
Still seeing patients.
Gulf War. different kind of people.
'Needed an epidemiological approach'
Showed 'something had happened'
Twice as many symptoms. Showed not due to depleted uranium or vaccines.
Did study during Iraq war. Same questions same toxins, no repeat of gulf war syndrome.
Puts Gulf war syndrome down to bad information - fear, paranoia, not real... Will never really know.
Message- need to do research -
 
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2,158
Looking back over the program. His message : we are the heroes who understand and know how to treat CFS. No details given of what that treatment is. No mention of CBT or GET. We are still under attack from people who hate psychiatry. Some suggestion that CFS disappeared, then reappeared in the 1980s . Gulf war syndrome doesn't exist.

Also, when talking about his schooling, doesn't remember why he decided to do medicine aged 15, but surprising because he was better at the arts than the sciences.

Jim Al-khalili is a physicist. He took everything SW said as true. All very chummy.
 
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15,786
Fellow students at first psych job at Maudsley have stuck together.
I've seen lots of movies, and that sort of thing is always due to a Deep Dark Secret Buried In Their Past :cautious:

Underestimated hostility to psychiatry.
Still seeing patients.
Gulf War. different kind of people.
Rather daring of him. Sure, they probably don't read his research, so the lies might stand unchallenged for longer, but they've got guns and combat training :wide-eyed:
 

TiredSam

The wise nematode hibernates
Messages
2,677
Location
Germany
Looking back over the program. His message : we are the heroes who understand and know how to treat CFS. No details given of what that treatment is. No mention of CBT or GET. We are still under attack from people who hate psychiatry. Some suggestion that CFS disappeared, then reappeared in the 1980s . Gulf war syndrome doesn't exist.
Keep it vague, avoid going into detail at all cost. Classic BPS style. That's quite a bullet your ears took for the team @trishrhymes - I'd have felt safer in a war zone!
 

Molly98

Senior Member
Messages
576
Looking back over the program. His message : we are the heroes who understand and know how to treat CFS. No details given of what that treatment is. No mention of CBT or GET. We are still under attack from people who hate psychiatry. Some suggestion that CFS disappeared, then reappeared in the 1980s . Gulf war syndrome doesn't exist.

Also, when talking about his schooling, doesn't remember why he decided to do medicine aged 15, but surprising because he was better at the arts than the sciences.

Jim Al-khalili is a physicist. He took everything SW said as true. All very chummy.
The man is a complete nut job, fruit loop,
I have just read over Magaret Williamson's piece on Wessely's evidence on Gold War syndrome, you only have to read his responses in this to see what a narcissist and complete head f**k he is: http://www.margaretwilliams.me/2004/observations_on_wesselys_evidence_to_lord-lloyd_inquiry.pdf

What is truly shocking is that he goes unchallenged by all authority that seem to be submissive and intimidated by him.

My bet is that when he eventually pops his clogs they will all be coming out of the woodwork claiming how mentally unstable and tyrannical he was.

The BBC need to be challenged on why they let his posturing and grandiose beliefs go unchallenged, and why they give him a stage for it in the first place when there is nothing scientific about his beliefs and in fact many scientist would consider him to be anti-science. Why are the BBC not getting a scientist on to Challenge him?
 

Molly98

Senior Member
Messages
576
Made me laugh when he talked of narcissism!! Haha
Did he actually? OMG, I know a narcissist rarely recognises that they are one ( even it would appear if they are a psychiatrist it would seem) but I don't think there was ever a clearer example of what a Narcissistic personality was than Wessely, in fact they could use him as a text book example in their psychiatry training.

But, why are not others in his circles of psychiatrist and people of power and influence able to recognise this and stop him from causing the harm he does?

I can not see how something so obvious can be unrecognised by those whose job it is to recognise this stuff.

Or is it that they are too afraid of him to challenge or upset him, like is the case with many powerful narcissists with a great deal of authority.

Or is it that they are blind to it because they also have similar traits?
 

rosamary

Senior Member
Messages
131
I think it is important to note that he stated that neurologists didn't like patients with ME (or CFS as he called it) in 1980 and that is when he became involved.

What a dangerous situation.

He also didn't mention 'hysteria' or Mcevidyand Beard. Nor that the Royal College of Psychiatrists asked Beard to do his Phd on Royal Free disease etc because it was a missed opportunity as an example of mass hysteria. That was 1970s or late 60's I think.

It was very clear that the Maudsley hospital was a clique. From what he said. All still good friends. I bet we know all the names of that clique too.