Michael Sharpe skewered by @JohntheJack on Twitter

Maybe what Dr Sharpe has to realise is this. The only realistic way forward for care in ME in the UK is going to be to make use of people already employed to do that and to recruit new people who will have to be trained by those already involved. Until the penny drops with all these people that there is no basis for using CBT or GET or managing on the basis that the condition is psychosomatic we are stuck in negativity.

The positive move we can make at present, and it would be a major positive move, is to educate these people sufficiently for them to realise they need to start afresh. It would be very much easier if people like Dr Sharpe took a vanguard role in that, and gave lectures pointing out that the BPS model is groundless and disproven, at least on prima facie consideration. Or at least agree to stand aside. Similarly for Simon Wessely. But without that we are stuck with having to shout from the rooftops that PACE is rubbish in the hope that stick-in-the-mud service providers finally get the message.

 

I'll see your 2003 citation and raise you this February 19, 2002 citation in The Guardian. It's from a letter to the editor in response to an article of February 7th titled "The Making of a New Disease."

 

So why haven't you been listening to that positive message for the last thirty years instead of spreading negativity?

 

Hmmmm....that sounds like they're quoting a doctor @Forbin. Curious.

 

More of the conversation, for those not on twitter,
https://twitter.com/user/status/1009490390150459392

https://twitter.com/user/status/1009508053480345600

https://twitter.com/user/status/1009518160972742657


https://twitter.com/user/status/1009522146920591361

https://twitter.com/user/status/1009524333528735744

 

@dave30th , missed Lucibee's reply?

 

Indeed.
What we want is something that is actually 'evidence based'. And when we say 'evidence' we mean high quality, scientifically sound EVIDENCE. That's why we are so "negative" about PACE.... we are simply pointing out that the evidence for what we're being given is rubbish. That is. The Whole. Point!


And until such evidence for a treatment is produced i will be perfectly satisfied with supportive, respectful care. Something about which MS knows very little, clearly - he has shown no respect to the people he is talking to on twitter, i mean really telling @Mike Godwin to read the paper?! - saying he agrees respect is important means nothing.
Respect means believing the patient knows more about themselves than you do. Respect means treating patients as equals. as people who might actually be cleverer than you, as people who might have something to teach you, not as an aberrence but as a run of the mill occurrence.
From what i've seen 'respect' in the context of psychiatry seems to usually mean something akin to pity. Patting people on the head like you do with a 4 yr old who thinks there are monsters under the bead, & attempting to cut down to size anyone who offers a challenge to their opinions/ideas/work.

 

Perhaps the backchannels no longer have the desired effects?

 

It might go back to here (1998), though the word "false" is not used. I can only see the abstract.

ETA: RE: "than has been previously thought..."
The above assertion that causal beliefs do not affect outcomes (as opposed to beliefs about exercise/activity) runs contrary to a LOT of prior research that was published by psychiatrists/psychologists - including SW - in the early 90's (as documented here by @Valentijn).

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1009508843011878913

 

Oh dear ....first fish reeled in

 

There's this... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3806067 (from 1987) or this... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3156653 (from 1985) ...but that might explain why they don't like using [associating with] the term "false" anymore.

 

I don’t know. I feel like being on point with word usage is actually quite important. Were the shoe on the other foot, I’m sure if we as a patient community were accused of using certain words, the first thing we’d do would be “show me the evidence we said that”.

I just feel it’s important not to give the opportunity to be tripped up on such simple things as words that they didn’t actually use. There’s plenty of stuff that they did use that’s harmful and in plain sight.

 

Do I detect a reduction in arrogance and sarcasm?

 

Precisely this.

 

GOTCHA!

https://twitter.com/user/status/1009489814394109952

https://twitter.com/user/status/1009563607057739783

 

Either he has a cunning plan ...or he is heading for a mid life crisis

 

In this letter to the BMJ, Wessely is quoted as saying in 1994, "There is also a
phenomenon known as myalgic encephalomyelitis - or ME. This is not open to
simple definition - ICD 10 now discourages its use for that reason -
Instead, I will argue that ME is simply a belief, the belief that one has
an illness called ME."
[My Bold]

https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/30/re-epidemiology-chronic-fatigue-syndrome

If that is not another way of saying "false illness belief", then what is? The exact term is not the issue, the meaning behind the term is the issue - and I don't think you could put a cigarette paper between them. SW said this in 1994 - I don't think DT was on the ME scene then. MS messing with linguistics yet again.

Edit: Added link I originally overlooked.