THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WESSELY SCHOOL David F Marks* Independent Researcher Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, 13200, France *Address for correspondence:
[email protected] Rise and Fall of the Wessely School THE RISE AND FALL OF THE WESSELY SCHOOL 2 Rise and Fall of the Wessely School ABSTRACT The Wessely School’s (WS) approach to medically unexplained symptoms, myalgic encephalomyelitis and chronic fatigue syndrome (MUS/MECFS) is critically reviewed using scientific criteria. Based on the ‘Biopsychosocial Model’, the WS proposes that patients’ dysfunctional beliefs, deconditioning and attentional biases cause illness, disrupt therapies, and lead to preventable deaths. The evidence reviewed here suggests that none of the WS hypotheses is empirically supported. The lack of robust supportive evidence, fallacious causal assumptions, inappropriate and harmful therapies, broken scientific principles, repeated methodological flaws and unwillingness to share data all give the appearance of cargo cult science. The WS approach needs to be replaced by an evidence-based, biologically-grounded, scientific approach to MUS/MECFS. 3 Rise and Fall of the Wessely School Sickness doesn’t terrify me and death doesn’t terrify me. What terrifies me is that you can disappear because someone is telling the wrong story about you. I feel like that’s what happened to all of us who are living this. And I remember thinking that nobody’s coming to look for me because no one even knows that I went missing. Jennifer Brea, Unrest, 20171. 1. INTRODUCTION This review concerns a story filled with drama, pathos and tragedy. It is relevant to millions of seriously ill people with conditions that have no known cause or cure.