In social sciences I don’t accept this ,although I recognise others are happier with this approach than I . Why am I unconvinced ? Well for the normal reasons that leads me to reject the scientific method as adequate for understanding society……but also specifically in this case because so little observational work was carried out in the classrooms in Scotland, and virtually no longitudinal observational data exists.
So we are thrown onto survey and collected data from case histories, selective at best , unreliable at worst. In any case the recorded detailed histories, whilst high as with all psychiatric problems in Scotland, are nowhere near high enough to produce a causal link, and in any case the evidence if anything is numerically greater with men than women , which may , of course only imply women are more reluctant to come forwards with this complaint. That, in itself goes against the mainstream medical evidence which points to greater male reluctance to seek treatment.