Simon Wessely

Sir Simon Wessely M.A., M.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P., M.R.C.Psych., (born 23 December 1956) is a British Professor of Psychiatry at King’s College London and a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist at King’s College and the Maudsley Hospitals. He became director of the Chronic Fatigue Research Unit at King's College London in 1994 and has since been one of the most influential researchers in the field of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Wessely developed the cognitive behavioral model in which unhelpful thoughts and avoidance behavior are believed to perpetuate the symptoms of ME/CFS. Although Wessely has received many honours for his work and services, his research is considered controversial and has been criticized by ME/CFS expert clinicians, researchers and patients.

= Biography = Simon Wessely is the son of Rudolf Wessely, one of the Jewish children who managed to escape the Nazi regime through the help of Nicholas Winton. He studied medicine at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and psychiatry at the Maudsely Hospital in 1984. While working at the Maudsely, Wessely developed an interest into medically unexplained symptoms and syndromes, chronic fatigue syndrome in particular. He became Director of the Chronic Fatigue Research Unit at King’s in 1994 and of the Gulf War Illness Research Unit in 1996.

Wessely has published more than 600 papers and written books about chronic fatigue syndrome, the history of military psychiatry and clinical trials in psychiatry. From 2014 to 2017, Wessely was the elected president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He is married to Clare Gerada who was chairperson of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners from 2010 to 2013. Wessely has been honoured by the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards ; the Royal College of Physicians ; the American Psychiatric Association ; the Association of British Neurologists and more recently by Oxford university. In 2011 he was awarded the John Maddox prize for standing up for science. Wessely was knighted in 2012 and became the World's first Regius Professor in Psychiatry in 2017.

=Research into ME/CFS =

The Fatigue Scale
Working at the Maudsley Hosptial in the 1980s, Wessely developed an interest into patients with unexplained chronic fatigue. Such patients were commonly referred to neurologists, who often treated them with derision. The prevailing idea was that something might be wrong with their muscles, although tests usually came back normal. One of Wesselys first studies indicated that these chronically fatigued patients resembled patients suffering from an affective disorder rather than those with a neuromuscular illness. It was during this study that Wessely and colleagues developed the Chalder Fatigue Scale, a short questionnaire that is frequently used in research into fatigue and has been translated into multiple languages.

Old wine in new bottles
Wessely has argued that chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has many similarities to atypical depression and burnout, which are also characterized by fatigue symptoms. According to Wessely, “the feeling that CFS is but a synonym for better known psychiatric disorders refuses to go away, because it is partly true.” The main difference is believed to be one of attribution, as CFS patients often think their illness is caused by an external factor such as a virus. In his publications Wessely argued that external attributions lessen guilt and avoid blame, but increase the risk of long-term disability.

In an article titled “Old wine in new bottles” he highlights the resemblances with neurasthenia, a fatigue diagnosis that was popular at the turn of the 20th century but has since fallen out of use in most of the Western world. According to Wessely both neurasthenia and CFS should be seen as “culturally sanctioned expressions of distress” for those uncomfortable with the psychological aspects of illness. Within the CFS label, ill health can be blamed on environmental treats and unwelcome features of modern life. As such, Wessely reasoned that CFS is a “mirror of society”, “not simply an illness but a cultural phenomenon and metaphor of our times.”

Furthermore, Wessely has argued that “some of the modern impetus to 'allow' a specific chronic fatigue syndrome arises from the various compensation and social insurance schemes operating in developed countries.” According to Wessely, the CFS label makes it easier to allow reimbursement or compensation for fatigue, pain and misery, claiming that “If the chronic fatigue syndrome did not exist, our current medical and social care systems might force us to invent it.”

Epidemiology of CFS
With his training in clinical epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene, Wessely was able to perform one of the first large epidemiological studies of CFS in the United Kingdom. His study in primary care indicated no socioeconomic gradient for CFS, suggesting the excess of upper social classes in specialist clinics is due to selection bias. The prevalence of CFS in the 18- to 45-year age group was estimated at 2,6%, more than ten times as large as what later studies would report. The high prevalence could be due to a limited amount of laboratory screening tests, which was restricted due to cost. Wessely also worked on epidemiologic studies to determine the prevalence of CFS in children, the prevalence of CFS in Brazil and the relationship between fatigue and mental health problems. Using data from the British birth cohort, Wessely reported that a psychiatric disorder increased the chance of a self-reported diagnosis of CFS/ME later in life. With data from the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS), Wessely and colleagues were able to report a more than 6 fold increase in suicide-related mortalitiy in patients with CFS.

Cognitive behavioral therapy
Wessely considers his greatest achievement to be the development of a treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome, namely cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In CBT, the CFS patients are encouraged to take on a pragmatic approach, to stop worrying about what might have caused their illness and focus on the behavioral factors that perpetuate their symptoms. Patients are stimulated to no longer view the syndrome as a chronic and incurable disease. They are told they can improve or even recover but that they themselves have a significant role to play in this. With CBT, catastrophizing thoughts such as the belief that symptom flares indicate damage or an underlying disease process are challenged. Bodywatching, a heightened awareness to bodily sensations, is explained to be counterproductive. The main emphasis of CBT however is on reversing maladaptive avoidance behavior. The aim is to tackle “the handicapping, stimulus-driven cycle of CFS, in which symptoms are always a signal to rest, and to replace previous sensitization by tolerance.”  With CBT, patients are instructed to increase their activity level time-contingently and to no longer respond to symptom increases by resting.

Wessely’s research team conducted a randomized controlled trial which indicated that CBT is more effective in relieving CFS symptoms than relaxation therapy. Other researchers have reported similar findings and CBT has been recommended as an evidence-based treatment for CFS by several health authorities. More recently the effectiveness of CBT in CFS has been criticized for relying on subjective outcomes in unblinded studies. Objective outcomes which are less prone to biases show no improvements following CBT. In several patient surveys, respondents indicated to have been harmed by the graded activity approach in CBT. Wessely however has defended the methodogical weaknesses of CBT-trials [Mental elf Blog] and emphasized that there is “no particular reason why graded exercise carried out under appropriate professional supervision should be harmful.”

Biomedical research: myth busting
Wessely has conducted a multitude of biomedical studies into CFS, often putting popular ideas to the test. His research team reported that ordinary infections do not increase the risk of CFS, although there was an increased prevalence following viral meningitis and other more serious infections. Wessely and colleagues also demonstrated that there was no connection between the xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) and CFS.

Wessely studied type 2 cytokine-producing cells, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-genes, antinuclear autoantibodies (ANA), and VP-1 antigens suggestive of enteroviral infection. His research team looked into growth hormone and cortisol abnormalities in patients with CFS and conducted a randomized controlled trial of hydrocortisone treatment, which indicated reduced fatigue levels but only in the short term. Wessely reported on reduced vitamin B-status, an increased prevalence of coeliac disease and autonomic dysfunction in patients with CFS compared to controls.

His research team demonstrated that, contrary to popular thought, there is no indication of hyperventilation in patients with CFS and that the stereotype of CFS sufferers as perfectionists with negative attitudes toward psychiatry is not supported by scientific investigation. Contrary to his own expectation, Wessely demonstrated that there is significant correlation between low blood pressure and fatigue and that CFS patients have often reduced their alcohol consumption, in contrast to patients with affective disorders.

Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS)
In an influential 1999 article, Wessely and colleagues stated that somatic syndromes such as CFS are an “artefact of medical specialisation.” They argued that there’s a large population of patients with multiple medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) and that it’s mostly the specialist they see that determines their diagnosis. When seen in gastroenterology they might be diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, in rheumatology with fibromyalgia, in cardiology with atypical chest pain, in neurology with tension headache and in an infectious diseases clinic with chronic (postviral) fatigue syndrome. Wessely and colleagues point out that there’s a large overlap in case definitions of these syndromes and that patients often meet multiple diagnostic criteria. They have argued that these symptom-based criteria do not “cleave nature at the joints” and that functional somatic syndromes should be viewed to together [Nimmuan et al. 2001b] as they share several commonalities such as a predominance of women, a history of childhood trauma or abuse, comorbid emotional disorders and a responsiveness to antidepressants and psychological interventions.

Wessely’s research indicated that MUS are common and account for approximately half of patients referred to a variety of specialties [Nimmuan et al. 2001a]. Little evidence was found for the somatization concept. Patients who report a greater number of physical symptoms are also more likely to report symptoms of anxiety and depression, indicating that the former are not associated with a denial of psychological distress [Hotopf et al. 2001] Wessely en colleagues did report that patients with MUS often had a parent in bad health, a relationship that “may reflect a learned process whereby illness experience leads to symptom monitoring.”  According to Wessely, characterizing MUS as purely psychological complaints is likely to be counterproductive. Exposure to such attitudes “may paradoxically reinforce their determination to maintain the sick role, since to do otherwise would confirm the doctor’s own view – that it was ‘all in the mind’ after all.” Instead Wessely advises a holistisch approach using the biopsychosocial model.

= Other Research =

Gulf war syndrome
Wessely is a consultant advisor in psychiatry to the British Army and has done extensive research into the health of soldiers deployed in war zones. In an influential 1999 study, published in the Lancet, Wessely performed the UK’s first systematic epidemiological study on veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. Wessely’s team compared 4246 randomly selected British Gulf War veterans with servicemen deployed to the 1990s Bosnia conflict and a group of soldiers who served during the Gulf War but were not deployed there. The study showed that Gulf war veterans were more likely to report each one of the dozens of symptoms that were assessed. “Whatever the symptom, the rate was at least twice as high in the Gulf cohort as in either the non- deployed cohort or the Bosnia cohort.” [Wessely S, 2001] According to Wessely this indicated that there was a Gulf War health on soldiers deployed there but no evidence of a Gulf War syndrome, a unique constellation of signs or symptoms. Instead the symptoms reported show a large overlap with other medically unexplained complaints such as chronic fatigue syndrome in civilians.

Wessely has pointed out that unexplained illnesses have repeatedly been reported in soldiers deployed to combat and that these are often related to the particular nature of the conflict. Soldier’s heart for example arose out of concern that the straps securing the backpacks of soldiers in the American Civil War were compressing the region around the heart while shellshock took its name from the presumed effects of concussion caused by bombardments. Similarly Wessely has argued that the Gulf War Syndrome arose out of concern for the use of vaccinations and chemical agents. According to Wessely these biological factors such as exposure to depleted uranium, cannot explain the ill health of Gulf War veterans. Self-reported exposure to multiple vaccinations initially showed a relationship with poor health, but there was no association when vaccinations were recorded objectively from medical records. Wessely’s research also indicated that the Gulf War health effect could not be explained by stress or psychological disorders as his team indicated that there was no such health effect with soldiers deployed to the Iraq war, which was a longer, harder, and more dangerous campaign.

Wessely has argued that the story of Gulf War ill health began with some soldiers reporting symptoms but that these were amplified by concerns towards possible exposure to Saddam Hussein chemical agents. These symptoms and concerns were taken up by the media which it shaped into a particular syndrome. According to Wessely “the transmission of rumour was a significant part of the very construction of the condition itself.”

Resiliance
Wessely has written about many other subjects including peer-review, the use of antidepressants, the rise of counselling and the stigma attached to psychiatric illnesses. One common theme in his writing is resilience. Wessely emphasizes that adversity is part of human experience, that not everyone exposed to adversity becomes a victim and that “we should resist the temptation to redefine our identities solely in terms of what has been done to us.” In a provocative paper titled ““going to war does not have to hurt” Wessely argued that deployment to armed conflict does not necessarily result in ill health, as soldiers deployed to the Iraq war do not have an increase in psychological symptoms. Wessely has been critical of the concept of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) because it assumes that the cause of the disorder is known. According to Wessely “the view that the determinants of PTSD are to be found solely in the nature of the stressor cannot be sustained.” Wessely has also criticized the use of psychological debriefing and screening for depression, arguing these techniques are not effective and that resources should better devoted to patients with known psychiatric illness who are currently underserved.

= Controversy =

Emphasis on psychosocial factors
While Wessely’s work has been influential, it is also considered to be controversial. Patients and researchers have argued that he overemphasizes psychological, social and cultural elements and downplays the organic factors in poorly understood illnesses of our time. Wessely for example has argued that illnesses such as multiple chemical sensitivities and electromagnetic hypersensitivity often mask psychiatric illnesses but due to the stigma attached to psychiatry, patients attribute their symptoms to somatic causes. In regards to symptoms attributed to allergies, Wessely wrote that some patients have developed “a lifestyle around their illness, with their own journals, clinics, and self help groups.”

Wessely suggested that psychological factors were responsible for ill health reported after contamination of the water supply with aluminium sulphate in Camelford, England in 1988. Wessely wrote that “the most likely explanation of the Camelford findings is that the perception of normal and benign somatic symptoms (physical or mental) by both subjects and health professionals was heightened and subsequently attributed to an external, physical cause, such as poisoning.” The UK government however formally apologized in 2013, 25 years later, to those whose health was affected by the water supply contamination. [31] Similarly Wessely has argued that ill health reported following the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, is a “consequence of an ideology that tells us that our physical environment is responsible for most of our bodily discomforts and ills.”

Iatrogenesis and ME
Wessely has criticized doctors who favored a somatic approach to poorly understood illnesses. According to Wessely “there is a considerable degree of iatrogenesis in the rise of these conditions.” Wessely has argued that diagnosing patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) as if it was an incurable and chronic condition can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. He warned that campaigning for more awareness of ME in adolescents might have increased the incidence of young people with such presentations. In contrast to CFS, Wessely has argued that ME is not an accepted medical diagnosis with established diagnostic criteria and that this diagnosis should therefore be interpreted as a belief systems -“a person has ME when they say they do.” According to Wessely and colleagues “understanding of the postviral fatigue syndrome has been hindered by doctors who suffer from the condition also researching it.”

Death Threats
Wessely has reported in interviews that he has received multiple death threats from ME activists who dislike his research into psychological elements of chronic fatigue syndrome. He has claimed that “it’s safer to insult the Prophet Mohammed than to contradict the armed wing of the ME brigade.”  Because of the death threats, Wessely has moved his research interest to studies of Gulf war syndrome and other conditions linked to war. “I now go to Iraq and Afhanistan, where I feel a lot safer” he stated in the press. In 2011 Wessely was awarded the John Maddox Prize for Standing up for Science for the way he dealt with intimidation and harassment during his research of ME/CFS, a decision that was protested by critics.

#BantheBash
Wessely has argued that much of the passionate criticism of his work on chronic fatigue syndrome is driven by anti-psychiatry sentiments, claiming that “at the heart of the ME/CFIDS movement is the rejection of any form of psychological causation or treatment. Being referred to a psychiatrist is being blackballed, being on trial or imprisoned for a crime I didn’t do.” According to Wessely some of the patients who campaign for ME and against the biopsychosocial view of CFS, have an obsession about psychiatry. “With these people, it isn’t that they don’t want to get better but if the price is recognising the psychiatric basis of the condition, they’d rather not get better.” Similarly, Wessely has argued that “the drive to find a somatic biomarker for chronic fatigue syndrome is driven not so much by a dispassionate thirst for knowledge but more by an overwhelming desire to get rid of the psychiatrists.” As president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Wessely launched the Anti-BASH (#BantheBash) campaign to stop stigma attached to psychiatry.

Ean P.
Wessely was involved in the controversial management of a child with severe ME named Ean P. who was taken away from his parents to follow rehabilitative treatments. The parents of the child claimed that the medical carers of Ean had engaged in professional misconduct, an allegation that was not fully confirmed by subsequent enquiries. As a psychiatrist who investigated Ean, Wessely had argued that he did not have a primary organic illness but a psychological illness that required intensive rehabilitation.

Page vs. Smith
Wessely was also consulted as an expert in a notorious legal case, Page vs Smith, where a patient reported a relapse of a chronic fatigue syndrome after a car crash. Wessely argued that the patients relapsed not because of any neurological or immunological process but because of his vulnerability to psychiatric injury, as the person had a history of previous psychological disorder.

Gremlins at the BMJ
In the year 2000 one of Wessely’s papers in the BMJ was criticized by Martin Bland, professor of medical statistics, for having multiple statistical flaws. Wessely admitted the mistakes but said his original version did have the correct analysis and figures and that the errors seem to have happened when the manuscript was being published by the journal. Wessely’s account was confirmed by Norwegian researcher Jon Håvard Loge who had received a copy of the original version that did not have the statistical mistakes. Wessely joked that “somewhere between the analysis and the printed copy we have been attacked by gremlins.” Editor of the BMJ Richard Smith however pointed out that the mistake could also have happened when one of the reviewers asked for a change in presentation of the figures, and the authors not making this change correctly.

Notable studies

 * 1990, Old wine in new bottles: neurasthenia and 'ME'
 * 2005, The Placebo Response in the Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (Full text)
 * 2009, Chronic fatigue syndrome: identifying zebras amongst the horses. (Full text)
 * 2016, Mortality of people with chronic fatigue syndrome: a retrospective cohort study in England and Wales from the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Biomedical Research Centre (SLaM BRC) Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) Register The study has been criticized by James Coyne.

Books

 * 1999, Chronic Fatigue and its Syndromes

Talks, interviews, and newspaper articles

 * 1994, Is cancer all in the mind?
 * 1993, Letter to Mansel Aylward at the Department of Social Security complaining about neurological classification of ME/CFS
 * 2006, Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue: The true story of Gulf War Syndrome
 * 2010, Chronic fatigue syndrome
 * 2011, Interview with Professor Simon Wessely - The Times
 * 2014, Psychiatrists and the pharma industry are to blame for the current ‘epidemic’ of mental disorders

Online presence

 * PubMed - Simon Wessely
 * Twitter
 * Website

Directorships and Shareholdings
Simon Charles Wessely is a director and has held a total of 5 appointments. He is a director of the Science Media Centre  (Company number 07560997).

Learn more

 * Wikipedia - Simon Wessely
 * 1999, Denigration by Design Update (Vol 2): A Review of the Role of Simon Wessely in the Perception of ME 1996-1999 - Margaret Williams
 * 2003, THE MENTAL HEALTH MOVEMENT: PERSECUTION OF PATIENTS? A consideration of the role of Professor Simon Wessely and other members of the "Wessely School" in the perception of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in the UK. Background Briefing for the House of Commons Select Health Committee - Malcolm Hooper
 * 2003, Notes on the involvement of Wessely et al with the Insurance Industry and how they deal with ME/CFS claims


 * 2011, Dr. Ian Gibson on BBC radio: Prof Simon Wessely has been blocking proper research into ME for years
 * 2012, Letter from Countess Mar to Professor Simon Wessely
 * 2013, Professor Sir Simon Wessely – Right or Wrong?
 * 2013, Simon Wessely's Big Shift? CBT Icon Calls For Big Rituximab Trial
 * 2015, Chronic fatigue syndrome gets yet another name