"
Is psychiatry “[l]osing its territory”, with “few places left to go”? If so, Restifo’s chilling speculations might help explain, for example, psychiatric excursions into territories such as hitherto unexplained illnesses like myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
For example, the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of ME proposes that psycho-behavioural interventions can alter its course favourably.
The credibility of the BPS model, however, was dealt a severe blow when the results of the so-called PACE trial, published in The Lancet (2011, 377: 823-836), were discredited on several fronts in peer-reviewed articles.
By contrast, mounting evidence shows that ME has a biological cause, centred on the immune system and a probable inflammatory process.
When the scientific basis on which psychiatry is popularly supposed to rest is challenged by psychiatrists themselves should those individuals be branded as militant?
No (even if it’s a welcome change from ascribing militancy to some ME organisations).
More importantly, there is a sense in which psychiatry appears to be “muscling in” on other medical specialities, with, as Gupta (above) warns, EBP placing psychiatrists in situations where they wrongly believe they have knowledge about the appropriate intervention.
Might this be the case with ME? If so, it constitutes a disservice both to ME patients and psychiatry."
