Swedish psychiatrist on how he came to view M.E. as a physical disorder

Prof. Carl-Gerhard Gottfries is a professor of psychiatry. In this video, he explains how he and his colleagues first approached the treatment of patients with fibromyalgia and ME from a psychiatric perspective, and later came to view these illnesses as “multi-organic disorders” involving the immune system.
Gottfries became interested in ME in 1957, when a pandemic of Asian flu swept Sweden. Gottfries was working in a psychiatric unit at that time. Patients with complaints of profound fatigue were being referred to the psychiatric unit after doctors could not find any physical explanation for their symptoms. Gottfries saw over 100 of these patients before getting the Asian flu himself and coming down with profound fatigue.
His clinic, which treats patients using a biomedical approach and also conducts research, is under scrutiny from government officials who believe ME/CFS and fibromyalgia are psychosomatic illnesses that should be treated using a “biopsychosocial” approach, the center piece of which is psychotherapy.

“Our experience is these patients float around in hospital care without anybody giving notice to them. When they arrive here, they have been ill for eleven years. They’ve gone around with their disorder for eleven years without getting a real diagnosis. There is a great need for information for these patients. And not only for these patients, but for society.”


 


Watch more with Prof. Gottfries:

1 Background and vaccine
2 Experience and the clinic
3 The Clinic and Urgent Needs
4 Continued research
5 Wishes for the future

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6 thoughts on “Swedish psychiatrist on how he came to view M.E. as a physical disorder”

  1. If you have ever suffered with this illness you would realise it’s not all in your head. It’s a living nightmare!

  2. My experience exactly. In 1957 I had a seriously bad case of the Asian flu. I was in high school. I seemed to get well, but felt myself slipping in 1959, my senior year of high school. In college I had a great first semester, but began getting sore throats, chills, sweats and major fatigue my 2nd semester. I was “diagnosed” with mono. I have not been really well with normal “unlimited” energy, and refreshing sleep since then.

  3. Det er massive beviser for hva dette handler om..
    Gjennom en massiv samling av publisert forskning og offentlig-journaldokumenter, gjør SASH en overbevisende sak for Lyme sykdom, ME / CFS, Gulf War Illness, Fibromyalgi og Autisme deler en felles mekanisme for sopp-indusert immunsuppresjon, kjent National Institutes of Health (NIH) som “Post- sepsissyndrom”. De rapporterer at en slik immunsuppresjon fører til kronisk reaktive i sentralnervesystemet av flere virus slik som Epstein-Barr-virus, cytomegalovirus og HHV-6, som fører til kreft og AIDS-lignende sykdom. SASH deler også bevis for at samspillet av sopp med svekkede virus i vaksine ampuller fører til reaktivering av de virus og til slutt, de sykdommene de er ment å forebygge.
    https://www.academia.edu/12589656/Charge_Sheets_documents_-_complete_2015
    Det er latterlig at ikke pasientorganisasjoner som f.eks ME foreningen tar tak i disse massive bevisene. Borrelia testene er forfalska – er en av flere faktorer som skaper sopp – virus synergier. Vaksiner som er forurenset av muggsopp / mycoplasma en annen trigger. PSYKIATRIEN / PSYKOSOMMATIKKEN har litt av hvert å svare for…

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