This letter is a tour de force and very important.
As a retired psychiatrist I saw the beginning of the politicization of the APA many decades ago when leftists began to petition to remove homosexuality from the DSM III. The fact that sexual perversions were listed as diagnoses was not a value judgment or a prejudice, it was based upon bi…
This letter is a tour de force and very important.
As a retired psychiatrist I saw the beginning of the politicization of the APA many decades ago when leftists began to petition to remove homosexuality from the DSM III. The fact that sexual perversions were listed as diagnoses was not a value judgment or a prejudice, it was based upon biology and what is known about psychosexual development. In individuals who chose a person of the same sex for love and sexuality, their development took that turn for specific reasons that could be understood. People could get help to learn more about themselves, even to the extent of character change, but also people who were in emotional pain about this could get help.
Once the political change was made, it was made under the false premise that people are born with these sexual perversions and therefore psychological treatment was harmful. I saw then that when you politicize science all you get is bad science. When you politicize treatment designed to help and respect individuals, what results is people go without help for their emotional pain.
Now the evil ones have been seducing children to mutilate their bodies as a hoped for solution to a child's emotional distress, when they are not even old enough to fully own their sexuality. It is soul-crushing and a form of child molestation done "for the benefit of the child."
All Americans need to wake up and realize genital mutilation and sex change operations are purely destructive to children's minds and bodies and should be outlawed as criminal.
Well said, but in a world where perversion is celebrated, and insight is non-existent, what can we expect? The reliance on chemical and surgical solutions to mental health problems is going to, and is already, damaging thousands, and poor communities will, and are, suffering disproportionately. When those charged with "helping" are endorsing chemical and surgical solutions for people already confused and lacking self-awareness, they are revealing their own mental health issues. Having the APA, doctors, social workers, therapists, etc. under the authority of people who lack insight, even regarding themselves, is dangerous, useless at best and destructive at worst.
But then again the APA always did have a basic problem. The basic inherent flaw is that no psychiatrist is required to have any kind of personal therapy or psychoanalysis. In order to become a psychoanalyst, however, you must have an analysis. Thus you have an in depth experience in bearing painful feelings over time, and getting perspective. You know the pain of revealing things about yourself you never wanted to even remember, and you know the emotional freedom that comes when you can face yourself fully, without having to hide feelings or conflicts from yourself.
But in psychiatry this isn't required. It means that psychiatrists often lack empathy and lack self-knowledge, and yet consider themselves knowledgeable about what their patients need. I would say the degree to which a psychiatrist focuses on drugs alone is proportional to the lack of insight he or she has into him or herself.
This letter is a tour de force and very important.
As a retired psychiatrist I saw the beginning of the politicization of the APA many decades ago when leftists began to petition to remove homosexuality from the DSM III. The fact that sexual perversions were listed as diagnoses was not a value judgment or a prejudice, it was based upon biology and what is known about psychosexual development. In individuals who chose a person of the same sex for love and sexuality, their development took that turn for specific reasons that could be understood. People could get help to learn more about themselves, even to the extent of character change, but also people who were in emotional pain about this could get help.
Once the political change was made, it was made under the false premise that people are born with these sexual perversions and therefore psychological treatment was harmful. I saw then that when you politicize science all you get is bad science. When you politicize treatment designed to help and respect individuals, what results is people go without help for their emotional pain.
Now the evil ones have been seducing children to mutilate their bodies as a hoped for solution to a child's emotional distress, when they are not even old enough to fully own their sexuality. It is soul-crushing and a form of child molestation done "for the benefit of the child."
All Americans need to wake up and realize genital mutilation and sex change operations are purely destructive to children's minds and bodies and should be outlawed as criminal.
Well said, but in a world where perversion is celebrated, and insight is non-existent, what can we expect? The reliance on chemical and surgical solutions to mental health problems is going to, and is already, damaging thousands, and poor communities will, and are, suffering disproportionately. When those charged with "helping" are endorsing chemical and surgical solutions for people already confused and lacking self-awareness, they are revealing their own mental health issues. Having the APA, doctors, social workers, therapists, etc. under the authority of people who lack insight, even regarding themselves, is dangerous, useless at best and destructive at worst.
So true.
But then again the APA always did have a basic problem. The basic inherent flaw is that no psychiatrist is required to have any kind of personal therapy or psychoanalysis. In order to become a psychoanalyst, however, you must have an analysis. Thus you have an in depth experience in bearing painful feelings over time, and getting perspective. You know the pain of revealing things about yourself you never wanted to even remember, and you know the emotional freedom that comes when you can face yourself fully, without having to hide feelings or conflicts from yourself.
But in psychiatry this isn't required. It means that psychiatrists often lack empathy and lack self-knowledge, and yet consider themselves knowledgeable about what their patients need. I would say the degree to which a psychiatrist focuses on drugs alone is proportional to the lack of insight he or she has into him or herself.