1998: Wessely playing down differences between himself and Showalter

This leads on from a discussion elsewhere, so might seem odd out of context, but there you go.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n16/sarah-rigby/diary

I was just reading this letter from Wessely, and thought it was of interest, as he now will now emphasise how different Showalter's views were from his own (although in this letter he only talks of "the research I described in the Guardian":

He gets a fairly sharp response from Sarah Rigby:

I've not been able to find the Guardian article of Wessely's that Rigby refers to. Anyone have a copy?

 

I could not find the Grauniad article but it is perhaps significant that this 1997 paper referred to the fact that "chronic fatigue had become invisible" with "no name...."
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13774809_Chronic_fatigue_syndrome_A_20th_century_illness

Unfortunately you have to put in a request for the full document.

"Understanding somatisation can still shed some light on the meaning of chronic fatigue at the end of the 20th century."

Has anyone ever understood it?

 

Thanks. It's currently on sci hub here: http://www.sjweh.fi.sci-hub.hk/download.php?abstract_id=239&file_nro=1

You might need to be quick to dl from that link though, as lots of scihub domains are being shut down at the moment.

 

Just making a note that I'm onto the page marked as 24 on this. I'm sure I've already read it anyway, but it's full of the usual Wessely stuff of implying more than he says, and so taking a long time to say very little. I might try to finish it tomorrow.

 

First impressions.

One comes away from this with the sense that sense that Wessely feels the overwhelming need to say something, but is not quite sure what he wants to say.

Now here is an interesting quote.

"Goldberg and Bridges have suggested an influential definition of somatisation, seeing it as a process by which patients gain access to medical care.They define somatisation as occurring when a patient with a psychiatric disorder seeks consultation for physical symptoms attributed by the patient to a physical cause. Finally treatment of the psychiatric disorder would be expected to reduce or eliminate the physical symptoms."

This is a little unfair. He goes on to discuss other definitions, but there seems to be no overt criticism of this underlying idea.

He finishes with:

" I have also shown how the genuine fear and stigma of mental illness and the need for explanations that are both protective of self esteem and in keeping with modern views on sickness and health are also important..........etc."

It needs reading a couple more times. It needed editing a couple more times.