A virus with profound psycho-sexual difficulties

By: Indigo Jo Blogs

Transcript of Frontline documentary on ME from 1993:

PH: The one absolutely clear-cut clinical feature in this disease is the personality profile of the people who develop it. Many of them have profound psycho-sexual difficulties with partner relationships and life in general, and they, uh, they’re people who just aren’t very happy with the life situation that they find themselves in. Now most of us would say, “now, I recognise that in myself”, if you like, but it’s a question of how you react to it.

In one particular incidence I came across recently, the father said that if he peeled the potatoes for dinner, he was completely exhausted for several days. Now, I do not believe for one moment that that reflects organic dysfunction of any aspect of the nervous system from the motor cortex [points to his head] down to your fingertips. I think that is bound to be, to use a colloquial phrase, “in the mind”.

PH: Dr Peter Hudgson, consultant neurologist, Newcastle General Hospital


Channel 4 Frontline documentary on ME:

It features the young Lynn Gilderdale, then a year and a half into her long illness, as well as Ean Proctor, who had been forcibly removed from his family and subsequently subjected to abusive treatments in hospital.

EP: Ean Proctor, teenage boy who had been severe ME sufferer
LG or Lynn: Lynn Gilderdale, then 15-year-old ME sufferer
Also:
RH: Rosemary Hewitt, ME sufferer (Royal Free outbreak)
RG: Richard Gilderdale, father of Lynn
BP: Barbara Proctor, mother of Ean Proctor (EP below)

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