What the Heck are They Talking About: Neurological CFS: Walker skewers psychiatric cabal in "Skewed"

I first heard about this book through the grapevine in 2003 and now that it is more widely available, I am absolutely gleeful.

John Sayer, a fellow traveler from the other side of the pond, has graciously given his permission for me to post his take on "Skewed - Psychiatric hegemony and the manufacture of mental illness in Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Gulf War Syndrome, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" (Slingshot Publications, London, ISBN 0-9519646-4-X)

John sezs: "If you've ever wondered why M.E. (known as CFS on the U.S. side of the pond) is incessantly touted by certain parties as a "mood disorder," the explanation is contained within this thoroughly researched and documented book by Martin J Walker.

The tangled web of big business and those who perpetuate the 'psychological' myth is well and truly exposed. You will be shocked, but probably not the least bit surprised.

Essential reading for sufferers, carers, advocates and the medical profession alike."

Me again: For those of you tired of the psychiatric debate and wondering how what happens in the rest of the world, including the UK insistence that neurological CFS is nothing more than "mass hysteria," impacts us here in the good ol' U S of A, this well-documented book is a good place to start.

Martin's book is more than the documentation of a specific neurological disorder, ME, subsumed by psychiatrists into a larger, undifferentiated psychiatric mass including chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, as well as Gulf War Syndrome where the environmental toxin connection is pretty well documented. It is a history of how a group of psychiatrists have created a cabal with insurance and industry to create the myth that illness, some of which may have environmental triggers, is shrugged off as psychiatric illness by deliberately using the stigma of psychiatric illness and the imaginary to quell the patient voice. As Walker notes, this theory is used to dismiss anybody who has an illness which isn’t easily identifiable, doesn’t have a characteristic symptomatology and doesn’t have any clear treatment.

I'm not big on conspiracy theories but I'm too old and skeptical not to recognize the well-documented connection between big money and unethical action.

Still not sure it applies to you? The following groups are deeply impacted:

Anyone who has received a medical diagnosis based on the research criteria from the 1994 Fukada study done throught the auspices of the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) is impacted.

<>
Anyone who has ever had a medical doctor tell them that this neurological disorder is "all in their head," which it is DUH, but that's not what the doctor meant, has been impacted.

Anyone who has the additional heartbreak of having a child with CFS and been told that either their child is just "lazy" or "school phobia," or that the parent themselves are trying to make the child believe that she, and sometimes he, is actually physically sick: for their own personal gratification is impacted.

In an interview with Louise Mclean, Walker states: "There are examples ...in another of my books, Skewed, regarding ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome... in which... Cases are described where psychiatrists put children with ME in closed mental hospital facilities. In some cases the parents are arrested and in one case imprisoned because they were said to be inflicting false illness beliefs on their children. Some of the mothers were accused of having Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.It appears that we are entering an area where abuse becomes defined by doctors, not simply in criminal terms or in terms of violence or even mental cruelty but on the grounds that the parent disagrees with orthodox medicine...

...A moratorium has been called on diagnostic testing so that there is going to be no further research, in Britain anyway, into what actually caused ME or what ME is ...

...SKEWED deals with ME, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and Gulf War Syndrome. It uses them all as examples of how the psychiatric argument is used to cloak any research into organic aetiology."

LOL; as some vaguely remember adult used to tell me when I was a kid, "Shut your mouth sunshine, you're letting all the flies in."

According to John, "Skewed" is available from Cygnus Books UK. (Tel. 0845-456-1577). Skewed may also be purchased from the following address:

Slingshot Publications B.M. Box 8314
London, WCIN 3XX England

12.0 Pounds U.K.
20.0 Dollars U.S.
18.0 Pounds Australian
+ shipping and handling…

A few other reviews of note:
Review of Skewed including insightful foreward by Per Dalen, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Gothenburg, Sweden;

Book review: 'Skewed' By Martin Walker: "Retrospect has a way of making past blunders look foolish..."

ca·bal n
1. a group of conspirators or plotters, particularly one formed for political purposes
2. a secret plot or conspiracy, especially a political one

vi
to form a group and plot together against somebody or something

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

What the Heck are They Talking About: Neurological CFS

Walker skewers psychiatric cabal in "Skewed"

TrackBack

Comments