Showalter's controversial take on illnesses such as dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder), Gulf War syndrome and "modern" Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in her book Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (1997) has angered some in the health profession and many who believe that they suffer from these illnesses. AND
A review of Elaine Showalter's _Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media: Alien abduction, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Satanic ritual abuse, Recovered memory, Gulf War syndrome, Multiple Personality Syndrome_ (NY: Columbia University Press, 1997)
http://www.cfids-me.org/marys/elaine.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_fatigue_syndrome
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is the most common name given to a poorly understood, variably debilitating disorder or disorders of uncertain causation.
Symptoms of CFS include widespread muscle & joint pain, cognitive difficulties, chronic, often severe mental and physical exhaustion and other characteristic symptoms in a previously healthy and active person. Fatigue is a common symptom in many illnesses, but CFS is a multi-systemic disease and is relatively rare by comparison.[1] Diagnosis requires a number of features, the most common being severe mental and physical exhaustion which is "unrelieved by rest" and is worsened by exertion. Most diagnostic criteria require that symptoms must be present for at least six months, and all state the symptoms must not be caused by other medical conditions. CFS patients may report many symptoms which are not included in all diagnostic criteria,[2] including muscle weakness, cognitive dysfunction, hypersensitivity, orthostatic intolerance, digestive disturbances, depression, poor immune response, and cardiac and respiratory problems. It is unclear if these symptoms represent co-morbid conditions or are produced by an underlying etiology of CFS.[3] The condition may be managed rather than treated, with full resolution in only 5-10% of cases.[4]
CFS is thought to have an incidence of 4 adults per 1,000 in the United States.[5] For unknown reasons, CFS occurs more often in women than men, and in people in their 40s and 50s.[6][7] The illness is estimated to be less prevalent among children and adolescents, but studies are contradictory as to the degree.[8] Despite promising avenues of research there remains no medical test which is widely accepted to be diagnostic of CFS. It remains a diagnosis of exclusion based largely on patient history and symptomatic criteria, although a number of tests can aid diagnosis.[9]
Whereas there is agreement on the genuine threat to health, happiness, and productivity posed by CFS, various physicians groups, researchers, and patient activists promote different nomenclature, diagnostic criteria, etiologic hypotheses, and treatments, resulting in controversy about nearly all aspects of the disorder. The name CFS itself is controversial, as advocacy groups as well as some experts feel it trivializes the illness and have supported efforts to change it. The World Health Organization's ICD uses the terms post-viral fatigue syndrome and benign myalgic encephalomyelitis. Another alternative name for CFS is chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome.