I've been enjoying the law firm drama Damages on BBC 1, but have no idea what is going on, it's ridiculously convoluted.
Simon Wessely is a very dangerous man. I see he's been up to his old tricks again, in the Independent. Interesting that ME doesn't exist in France - I was living in fucking France when I got ill. I'm not surprised he gets hate mail. Personally, I wouldn't waste the stamp.
* Just to add: Of course I do not think hate mail is ever a good idea, but I can understand why people are driven to it, faced with attitudes such as Wessely's. I couldn't sleep last night and was thinking of Elaine Showalter, American academic and charming author of Hystories (1997) - I believe she also got hate mail and death threats for her views on ME and Gulf War Syndrome. I just read she needed an armed guard at a Barnes & Noble reading.
ME does not just wreck one person's life. It irrevocably changes the lives of their families and partners and children. Do the likes of SW and ES have the remotest idea of the damage their ill conceived ideas cause? I don't know how they sleep at night.
Simon Wessely is a very dangerous man. I see he's been up to his old tricks again, in the Independent. Interesting that ME doesn't exist in France - I was living in fucking France when I got ill. I'm not surprised he gets hate mail. Personally, I wouldn't waste the stamp.
* Just to add: Of course I do not think hate mail is ever a good idea, but I can understand why people are driven to it, faced with attitudes such as Wessely's. I couldn't sleep last night and was thinking of Elaine Showalter, American academic and charming author of Hystories (1997) - I believe she also got hate mail and death threats for her views on ME and Gulf War Syndrome. I just read she needed an armed guard at a Barnes & Noble reading.
ME does not just wreck one person's life. It irrevocably changes the lives of their families and partners and children. Do the likes of SW and ES have the remotest idea of the damage their ill conceived ideas cause? I don't know how they sleep at night.
7 comments:
I've been watching the British "MI-5," and can follow the plots, but often don't get the lingo--can't penetrate the various English accents. I also watch "Waking the Dead." It's terrible and far-fetched but Trevor Eve, who plays Inspector Boyd, looks like my husband, so I'm hooked.
What Simon Wessely and Elaine Showalter don't seem to realise is that their beliefs about "unexplained" illness are, in themselves, a cultural phenomenon. They are beliefs based on a kind of cultural theory of illness rather than anything more scientifically concrete.
The Independent article is awful. I can't believe this is still going on. It's, like, soooo twenty years ago....
I wouldn't waste a stamp either, and neither do I know how these people sleep at night. They cannot plead ignorance. Power crazy and cruel seem to fit the bill. Anyway, a happy weekend to all!
Mim, Do you mean 'Spooks'? They have possibly renamed for a US audience. Really, you find the accents hard? They are mostly posh, these agents, easy to understand. I can never follow the plots, but it is a fun & gripping series. 'Waking the Dead' is well acted, but, yes, totally far fetched... Trevor Eve is very good in it.
Amy, I agree: SW & ES are simply indulging their bizarre fantasies, Showalter can be dismissed as an attention seeking academic, but as we know only too well, Wessely - inexplicably - holds power.
Willow, Happy weekend to you too.
RE: Wessely and other psychiatrists, an article in the 03.04.09 Guardian Weekly stated that: "A survey of more than 1,300 therapists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists found more than 200 practitioners had attempted to change at least one patient's sexual orientation, while 55 said they were still offering the therapy."
Makes me wonder why anyone can take them seriously at all... Wessely clearly belongs to that group.
PS: nmj thanks for your note on my blog!! Glad to have found yours!
I think they should be struck off for saying that people with ME can be manipulative - my mouth literally dropped open when I read that word!
hey nicky, it is appalling that i even needed to ask the question!
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