Simon Wessely Didn't Want His e-Mail On A Blog - Here It Is on Hole Ousia

A masterclass in classic Wessely techniques.

Attempting to shut down coversation:

Must dash / I'm busy / don't have time:

"This isn't you James" (first noticed being used against James Coyne a few years ago I think):

Nothing to see here, move along:

Deliberate vagueness about facts whilst being careful not to actually deny them:

Of course there was a meeting, and his wife is listed as attending.

Wessely really is a few-tricks pony, and happily more and more people are becoming aware of it (and growing tired of it):

 

I agree with all the above. Simon Wessely does not come across well. His behaviour in this correspondence is completely unprofessional.

The thing that interests me that he is on the side of a group complaining about the poor quality of evidence NICE has used in forming its guideline for depression. Stresses the importance of correct use of statistics, and using long term follow up evidence - on that basis he should be fighting with us against the use of PACE to support GET/CBT, since, on his own argument, it misused statistics, and at long term follow up was a null trial - but of course that's different...

 

I can't see any comments - I assume it's awaiting approval by the blog owner. Care to share it here?

 

It's a blog by a consultant psychiatrist, Peter Gordon.

He had some communication by e-mail with Simon Wessely about a letter Simon had signed to NICE asking for review of the NICE guidelines on depression, among other things objecting to the use of short studies with no long term follow up and incorrect use of statistics to inform the present guidelines.

He did an FOI to get the correspondence between NICE and Simon's group, which he publishes here.

He had some e-mails with SW about it, which he told Simon he would post on his blog after they'd been written. Simon did a silly strop about them being private communications and was generally childishly unprofessional about it.

 

That works for me, click on "Leave a Comment" and you can read all the comments. I wonder if the site owner would like the comments to be more visible than that and needs to change a setting?

 

Thanks for the advice, I've now read the comments. Excellent comment @Jonathan Edwards.

 

Great video at the top of the comments section, this guy is really onto Wessely. Guest appearance from a concerned Ben Goldman - plus a debate in which I heard Sir Simon's voice for the first time. I assumed he'd sound posher, and was surprised to hear him speak like the dodgy geezer he really is. All part of the matey bonhomie thing I suppose.