Personality and social attitudes in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (1999) Wood and Wessely.

Simbindi

Simbindi

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Hardly a new paper, but I can't see this paper as a title on any existing thread.

It's interesting to read Wessely himself state that they found no evidence for CFS/ME patients having negative attitudes to psychiatry, nor for having a particular 'perfectionist personality':

Abstract—One hundred one chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients attending a specialist CFS clinic were compared with 45 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients on a range of standardized questionnaire measures, to investigate whether CFS patients are characterized by particular personality traits or social attitudes. No differences were found between CFS and RA patients in measures of perfectionism, attitudes toward mental illness, defensiveness, social desirability, or sensitivity to punishment (a concept related to neuroticism), on either crude or adjusted analyses. Alexithymia scores were greater in the RA patient group (p,0.05). Social adjustment, based on subjective assessment of overall restriction in activities and relationship difficulties, was substantially poorer in the CFS group (p,0.001). This was highly associated with depressive symptoms, but remained significant even after adjusting for depressive symptomatology. There was no evidence from this study of major differences between the personalities of CFS patients and RA patients. The stereotype of CFS sufferers as perfectionists with negative attitudes toward psychiatry was not supported. .
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Sci-hub link here:

https://scihub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399999000252?via%3Dihub
 
Interesting because he was the one saying it before (about being anti-psychiatry)

eg:
Patients with chronic fatigue have long disliked psychiatry.
Wessely S, Powell R.The nature of fatigue: A comparison of chronic "postviral" fatigue with neuromuscular and affective disorders. J Neurol Neurosrg Psychiatry 1989;52;940-948.

The main difference between CFS and the major psychiatric disorders is neither aetiological, nor symptomatic, but the existence of a powerful lobby group that dislikes any association with psychiatry.
The National Archives of the UK: Public Record Office (PRO) BN 141/1, 1 October 1993 Wessely to Aylward, pp 17-18.
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see the quotes here
https://www.s4me.info/threads/simon-wessely-research-related-quotes.1304/#post-22183
 
One hundred one chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients attending a specialist CFS clinic were compared with 45 rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients on a range of standardized questionnaire measures, to investigate whether CFS patients are characterized by particular personality traits or social attitudes.
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Oh the good old days when they still used controls with other illnesses. They soon dropped that when they discovered that people with ME were not different from other illnesses.

I can't remember the paper and am to tired to look for it, sorry, but in it they asked whether symptoms could be psychological or were definitely physical. They specifically said that they did not use disease controls as people with a physical disease were more likely to think symptoms were physical.

So when they found that people with ME were more likely to say that symptoms were physical than psychological compared with healthy controls they concluded that people with ME were somatising :banghead::banghead::banghead:
 
Sly Saint said:
Interesting because he was the one saying it before (about being anti-psychiatry)

eg:

see the quotes here
https://www.s4me.info/threads/simon-wessely-research-related-quotes.1304/#post-22183
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I had no particular opinion of psychiatry before I got sick. Or years into being sick until I learned about all the nonsense it peddles about the disease that ruined my life. I also had no opinion about ME, let alone a belief about having something I had never heard of, causing slight issues with the whole "ME is a belief in having a disease called ME". I can confirm that I did not violate the spacetime continuum by holding beliefs about things I had no knowledge of. I had never heard of ME, CFS, CF or any combination of those terms.

I do now have a bad opinion of psychiatry, based on the highly negative impact on my life by some of its reckless practitioners. It does not change one way or another anything about my illness, they are two completely distinct and separate entities. Nothing has changed about my attitude, my temperament, my outlook on life or my beliefs in the interval, still the same person and fully expect to be pretty much the same if and when a cure frees me from this nightmare.

Only a narcissist would turn criticism about specific claims into a personal attack.
the existence of a powerful lobby group
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This is such a ridiculous claim. What a hack.
 
rvallee said:
I do now have a bad opinion of psychiatry
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Me too, but I do try to attenuate this feeling with the sure knowledge there are some wonderful, very genuine, and very sane ( :D:p ) people in it also, some of them here in S4ME, some who have helped people I know, etc. The worst of the thing about psychiatry is how the worst of the bunch seem to have gained the ascendancy, and having got there, their highest priority is to stay there, no matter what the cost to others. I despise them for this.
 
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I think it’s important to understand anti psychiatry and critical psychiatry’s viewpoint to understand how they had influence over M.E

The no hard evidence,no illness idea.

In some ways Anti psychiatry is kind,but in other ways cruel,I still cannot decide if it’s origins and intentions are kind or cruel
 
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Does Wood being listed as the first author indicate Wessley' s role as junior or senior?
The outcome may be relative to that.
Eisenberg and Wessley timeline?
 
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