&quot;I will argue that ME is simply a belief, the belief that one has an illness called ME..... .I will argue that this line here [overhead slide] represents not the line between low and high cortisol responses [but] the line between real and unreal illness.&quot;<p>Simon Wessely, Microbes, Mental Illness, the Media and ME: The Construction of Disease, 9th Eliot Slater Memorial Lecture, Institute of Psychiatry, April 1994.<p>Although he may have softened his stance in the past few years, this is fairly representative of Simon Wessely&#x27;s views during the past 20-25 years.