As a sufferer of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (a horribly misnamed disease), I should try to explain why we do get so angry at being told that the disease is psychological. Showalter is just another of a long list of academics (mostly male) and medical doctors who have minimized our suffering to 'hysteria'. One academic claimed that it was a way for women (mostly professional) to escape a workforce that was too much for them. If you've ever sat with women suffering from this disease, you would laugh at this characterization - we all want to and try so often to resume our normal lives only to be phyically knocked out for doing so.
First, the major implication of treating CFS as a psychological disorder is that all that's needed is a good dose of psychoanalysis and we'll all be fine. Since psychoanalysis is not covered by most health care plans (even here in Canada unless harmful to yourself or others), then each CFSer has to pay their own way for a 'cure'. If, on the other hand, its truly recognized as a potentially curable disease then governments would have to allocate reasonable amounts of research money to it, would have to cover treatments, and most importantly, pay adequate disability insurance. Showalter is simply accepting the neo-liberal status quo.
Secondly, the medical profession itself has NEVER been capable of dealing with systemic diseases in their early years. I have a dear friend with Multiple Scleroris and when he was diagnosed 20 years ago, the medical profession was still questioning whether it was actually a disease. The analytic framework of medicine and its extreme division of labour makes a disease that attacks all systems of the body - the immune, neurological, muscular, skeletal, organic (organs) and cognitive systems incomprehensible. Also, if their current tests on CFS sufferers aren't showing up definitive results, then it has to be a phantom illness. This attitude is slowly changing (probably under the influence of medical professionals less caught up in the western medical paradigm). There have been more and more definitive tests to show a distinct pattern of CFS sufferers (in brain wave activity, for example, before and after exercise and an Australian group is even developing blood tests).
Thirdly, as Marta noted, this is a way of diminishing women. There IS a psychological element to this disease - try having a really full life (I was in the process of finishing my Ph.D.) and then having been stopped full force. IT IS VERY DEPRESSING. The number of suicides of people who have this disease is extremely high. And a good part of this depression and anger (and suicide) comes from others blaming us for our lack of appropriate psychological demeanor, denying us any hope for treatment and then (after our partners have left us) being deprived of any financial assistance. A lot have ended up on the street. After 9 years, I've resigned myself to listening stoically to acquaintenances who coo, coo, say, "yea, I'm tired too - but I haven't 'quit' work." They have no idea how much I envy them.
Whatever Showalter's intention in her statements, she's given credence to a movement that is, as Louis' piece showed, an attack on victims. This is so reassuring for all of us who have constantly survived not only our illness but these attacks as well. Perhaps she can also invent the miracle pschological cure for us all.
Cathy