***Sharing for information – not a recommendation***
Today, an opinion article has been published on Sciencenorway.no online entitled ‘Is Long Covid ‘all in the mind'?'
Dr Charles Shepherd, Honorary Medical Adviser to the ME Association provides his comments in response to this opinion article.
. Paul Garner et al
Extracts
Large population studies show that there is often little correspondence between what people report of symptoms and what can be objectively assessed or measured in the body (Ballering et al., 2025). Thoughts, emotions, and life circumstances often explain symptoms better than biological findings.
This points to a deeper issue: the divide between body and mind. Are symptoms ‘real,' or are they ‘just in the mind'?
All symptoms are ‘in the mind' – not because they are imaginary, but because the brain continuously makes inferences based on bodily signals and expectations. The communication goes both ways: the body affects the brain, and the brain affects the body. This interaction happens automatically, all the time, in everyone.
It continues:
Experimental studies show that inducing negative emotions can make the brain generate symptoms (Bogaerts et al., 2023), activating structures that can actually be observed in the brain (Eisenberger et al., 2003; Hougaard et al., 2015).
***Sharing for information – not a recommendation***
MEA Comment
I would fully accept that having a long term and very debilitating illness like ME/CFS or Long Covid, which does not have any effective form of treatment, can have an effect on mental and emotional health.
However, I cannot agree with the emphasis on the role of the mind in symptom production that is being put forward in this opinion article from Norway.
The UK and Norwegian authors are well known for their opposition to much of the biomedical model of causation and management for ME/CFS and Long Covid.
I don't therefore believe that the mind-body approach to explanation and management that they are promoting here is going to be helpful in either Long Covid or ME/CFS.
Dr Charles Shepherd,
Trustee and Hon. Medical Adviser to the ME Association,
Member of the 2018-2021 NICE guideline on ME/CFS committee,
Member of the 2002 Chief Medical Officer's Working Group on ME/CFS
