New study: “Long Covid, chronic fatigue syndrome and women: the shadow of hysteria”

Historian of science and medicine, Ilana Löwy, published an essay earlier this year in Somatsophere, which discusses the parallels between Long Covid and chronic fatigue syndrome. The article also looks at the gendered dimensions of patient experiences, and looks at how broader cultural scripts have contributed to the dismissal of patient complaints and concerns.

As the author concludes:

Long Covid patients do not object to the notion that physical and mental suffering are closely entangled, but they strongly resist the argument that their problem is above all “in their head,” and their physiological symptoms are secondary manifestations of psychological issues, not the other way around. As one of the British spokespersons for long Covid patients explained, “no cancer patient is offered psychotherapeutic interventions as treatment; rather, these therapies play a supportive role for patients who require them. In contrast, cognitive behavioral therapy has been recommended as a first-line treatment for CFS for more than a decade” (Salisbury, 2021). The dominance of the “biopsychosocial” model of CFS, with its emphasis on the role of thought and behavior rather than pathology can explain, activists believe, why long Covid patients – in great majority women, a group with a long history of neglect and “psychiatrization” of their complaints – are now facing such limited options in clinics.