Sanism and the Psychologisation of Physical Illness
People with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) usually react negatively to the suggestion that our illness is psychosomatic. Psychologisers often retort that our reaction originates in and reveals negative attitudes towards mental illness. Before examining this rhetorical device, we need to be clear on why people with ME actually resist the psychologisation of our illness. As I explained in a previous blog post , state and medical institutions together with insurance companies have controversialised ME: they have buried the unequivocal evidence that ME is a physical illness in an effort to avoid funding research into treatments, medical care, and social support for the millions of people disabled by ME. Their main strategy has been to fund, reward, and amplify the fraudulent research of a handful of psychiatrists arguing that ME is nothing but “false illness beliefs” held as a result of social influence in order to reap the supposed benefits of the “sick role”. The resulting widespread na...