The circuit of symbolic violence in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) (I): A preliminary study

Published in Health Care for Women International, 2022, volume 43, issue 1-3: 5-41. doi:10.1080/07399332.2021.1925900.

Objective: How can it be that a disease as serious as Chronic Fatigue Symdrome (CFS) affecting such a large number of people could be so unknown to the general population? The answer given to this question is based on Pierre Bourdieu’s analyzes of symbolic violence, a field of study of which he was the forerunner and main theoretician. Method: The “letters to the editor” by CFS patients to three national Spanish newspapers were subjected to various qualitative (analysis of themes and subthemes) and quantitative analyzes (univariate description by themes and Multiple Correspondence Analysis [MCA] combined with an Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering [AHC]). Results: Based on the qualitative analyzes and their theoretical interpretation, 13 mechanisms of symbolic violence were identified: non-recognition (27%), institutionalized un-care (16%), condescension (0%), authorized imposition of illegitimate verdicts (15%), delegitimization (11%), disintegration (16%), imposition of discourse (1%), euphemization (4%), silencing (1%), invisibilization (2%), isolation (3%), uncommunication (0%), and self-blaming (4%). MCA made it possible to identify that the structural mechanisms (non-recognition, disintegration) were combined with the most symbolic ones (i.e., imposition of discourse, euphemization), which came to the forefront producing the observed effects of symbolic violence. The 13 clusters obtained in the AHC confirmed this result.