Posted on 01/11/2004 5:44:30 PM PST by Federalist 78
The last issue of Family Research Report highlighted the growing visibility and legal status of so-called ‘transsexuals.’ The mental health profession created the condition of ‘transsexualism’ during the past century — along with the condition of ‘homosexuality’ — but it hasn’t stopped there. Today, a small but growing number of people want to have one of their legs or arms cut off. One internet-based listserv, whose membership was 1,400 two and a half years ago, has 3,670 subscribers today.
According to some of our mental health experts, these poor, suffering individuals need help, and the only thing that works is amputation. So their solution is that society must help these folk by amputating the offending leg or arm!
Some professionals have even given this ‘condition’ a name: "body integrity identity disorder." It is a disorder that can only be ‘cured’ by amputation. Ironically, then, these mental health experts, including some at Columbia University, contend that society must make these people handicapped in order to "cure" them of their affliction.
Carl Elliott writes about this new insanity in the on-line magazine Slate (Costing an arm and a leg: The victims of a growing mental disorder are obsessed with amputation; July 10, 2003). Elliott discusses "an increasingly visible group of people who call themselves ‘amputee wannabes.’ Wannabes desperately wish to have their healthy limbs removed."
A university lecturer had his leg amputated by a surgeon who has also amputated the legs of two healthy people. "Why? Nobody really knows, including the wannabes themselves, who often say they have had the desire since they were children." As we reported in our last issue of Family Research Report, few transsexuals actually express a desire to have a mutilation or be the opposite sex while they are children. It is likely that the same is true of these amputee wannabes.
Notice a pattern here? Both transsexuals and amputee wannabes are likely iatrogenic. The syndrome or condition is probably generated or induced by the therapist; a form of autosuggestion based upon the therapist’s handling of or discussing of the issue. Elliott is concerned about this. He noted that "the mental health professionals in the film Whole (a social worker, a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist at Columbia University) speak with absolute confidence." Even by writing about voluntary amputation, Elliott says "I worried more people might start to identify themselves as wannabes and seek out amputation."
His concern is justified. Elliott says that "anyone with a rudimentary familiarity with the history of psychiatry cannot help but be struck by the way that mental disorders come and go." If this is "science," how can this be? A star is still a star no matter what the fashion or nomenclature in astronomy. The same is not true of mental healthism. Elliott notes that "conditions like social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, gender identity disorder, multiple personality disorder, anorexia, and chronic fatigue syndrome were once seen as rare or nonexistent, then suddenly they ballooned in popularity. This is not simply because people decided to "come out" rather than suffer alone. It is because all mental disorders… have a social component."
Elliott notes four things that typify these ‘disorders:’
Once the ‘condition’ is well launched, soon it is being "discussed in journals and at conferences." Then clinicians start to "diagnose the disorder more and more commonly," the condition is talked about in support groups, therapy sessions, Internet venues, etc. Then, thanks to the status and authority of mental healthism, "patients begin to reinterpret their own psychological histories in light of what they hear, and their behavior changes to match what is expected of people with the condition they believe they have."
So it is with the conditions of ‘homosexuality,’ ‘gender identity disorder,’ and ‘body integrity identity disorder.’ Patients often "diagnose themselves and decide on the proper treatment." That is, the professionals follow the lead of the mad and vice-versa — the ultimate in self-fulfilling prophecies.
Mental health schemes, like those of Marxists, have enormous implications for society. Slicing penises and manufacturing them into semi-vaginas is a costly social enterprise (making vaginas into quasi-penises is more costly still). Likewise, removing a limb. The client can’t do it for himself. It may be ‘his body,’ but it is not ‘his operation.’ Highly trained surgeons and nurses, hospital beds, and drugs, etc. — among the most expensive resources of society — have to be employed. Major disruptions in the patient’s social network occur and have to be "fixed."
Then, because a transsexual is not a woman, but rather a mutilated man (or vice-versa), laws must be enacted to ‘protect’ such individuals from ‘discrimination.’ Such laws already exist, of course, for the handicapped, as amputees suddenly become. School children and the general public must be ‘educated’ about the ‘normalcy’ of the desire to dress like or be somewhat like the opposite sex. Can the same be far behind for those who voluntarily choose to be legless or armless? And, of course, because these ‘conditions’ are presented as ‘normal,’ a few who ‘get the education’ will wonder if this is not the answer to their own ‘mental health problems.’ Growing Influence
In like manner, mental health professionals testify that sexual criminals have no, or reduced, responsibility because they weren’t treated appropriately by their parents or peers. As a consequence, if a fellow robs a bank and sexually molests a teller in the process, mental health professionals often provide the excuse for the rape while social scientists provide the excuse for the robbery.
Indeed, mental healthism has so grown in visibility and prestige that many are making major life changes to achieve ‘mental health.’ In the past, those who ‘didn’t know what to do with their life’ often chose a religious vocation and submerged their identity in devotion to God. Today, following a more self-centered approach, a growing minority is choosing a career of deception and mutilation instead. By mutilating or subtracting body-parts, they become the center of their social space.
Further, the mutilations are only part of their ‘career’ of self-fulfillment to achieve mental health. Mutilation as a ‘career choice’ is booming, in substantial part because it is "iatrogenic." Therapist gurus have invented notions such as ‘transsexualism’ or ‘body integrity identity disorder’ and have gotten society to participate in mutilating sex organs or cutting off limbs so that their client can achieve mental health. As well, the attention that the media is giving the mutilated and the ‘cause’ of those who want to be mutilated is resulting in large numbers of ‘mediagenic’ cases.
In the not so distant past, you were considered flat-out ‘mad’ if you wanted to have your ears, penis, breasts or arm removed. (Of course, piercings for cosmetic reasons, such as for ear-rings, did not put one in the ‘crazy’ category, and belly-rings and tongue-rings generally put one today in the ‘young and rebellious’ classification.) A responsible surgeon, even if he thought he had the technical ability to remove an ear, would refuse to remove a body part because he would be put at risk of being prosecuted as ‘doing harm’ rather than ‘practicing medicine.’
Today, if you want an arm, genitals, breasts, or leg removed (and maybe more), you may get your wish. All you must do is convince a psychiatrist or psychologist that that’s what you need to fulfill your deepest need, to heal your lack of mental ‘wholeness.’ Indeed, a growing number of people "suffering" from newly minted psychiatric "conditions" want their legs, arms, and/or genitals removed. The psychiatric response is ‘if this is what it takes to make you achieve mental health, OK’! For many, this is a "new life-course," a career to which they can devote the bulk of their life. All this to achieve ‘optimal mental health.’
Yet, ‘mental health’ is a concept that has never been clearly defined — it is, at best, the absence of any ‘serious mental problem’ as defined by psychiatry. And if getting rid of part of your body gets you more of ‘it,’ you have to wonder about the ‘health’ part of ‘mental health.’
We noted in the May 2003 issue of Family Research Report that cure rates of less than 1% per year were reported by the Community Mental Health establishment in Seattle (e.g., these clients no longer had to be ‘treated’). This is a very modest achievement. Yet the practitioners of the ‘mental health faith’ claim to be scientific gurus who have the ‘real answers to life.’ Indeed, they promise not just correct diagnoses of what’s wrong with you, but the correct treatments to make you ‘whole.’ FRI stands amazed that this modern gnosticism holds so much sway in our supposedly empirically-minded society.
One morning, retired architect George Boyer picks up a shotgun, sits down on the grass near his Florida home and ties a tourniquet tightly around his upper left thigh. Then he purposely blows the leg to shreds, forcing doctors to amputate the limb.
For the first time in his life, he says, he feels "complete."
Boyer is a voluntary amputee, a man with a disorder so rare, mysterious and under documented that doctors are only beginning to quantify and classify it.
Body Integrity Identity DisorderBody Integrity Identity Disorder
, or BIID, is a psychological condition in which the individual requests an elective amputation. Individuals with this condition experience the persistent desire to have their body physically match the idealized image they have of themselves. This desire forces individuals to deal with the paradox of losing one or more major limbs (i.e. arm[s] or leg[s]) to become whole. In their minds, "Less is more".
Costing an Arm and a Leg - The victims of a growing mental ...
Gilbert's sensitive film allows wannabes to speak for themselves. Many are so articulate and likable that no matter how difficult you find it to understand their desire, you will come away from the film with sympathy for their strange predicament. Yet perhaps the most disturbing figures in Whole are the clinicians. Even as the wannabes admit how baffling they find their own desires, the mental health professionals in the film speak with absolute confidence. The film features a social worker and clinical psychologist who have counseled Boyer in Florida, as well as Michael First, an academic psychiatrist at Columbia University, who has organized several meetings of wannabes and clinicians in New York. First says that the purpose of these meetings is to "facilitate treatment" for the condition, by which he says he means surgical treatment. His apparent certainty that nothing short of amputation can help these people is underscored by ominous music and a screen shot that reads, "There are no medications or therapies known to help wannabes."
ABC13.com: Man charged after allegedly injecting people with brake fluid
Houston police say they have cracked a rather bizarre case. They have arrested a transgender they say injected other transgenders with what was supposed to be pure silicone…but it wasn't. Now one of his clients is dead.
Twenty-two-year-old Delfino Gonzales died of asphyxiation just three days after being injected in May with a substance authorities now believe was brake fluid. It's an incredibly dangerous procedure transgenders are enduring instead of paying for much more expensive plastic surgery.
Mutilation for "Mental Health", October 2003
Across the western world, a growing number of people are voluntarily getting mutilated. Some are getting their genitals surgically altered, others are having their breasts, arms, or legs cut off.
Why are they doing these things?
These individuals would make a mess - maybe even kill themselves - if they mutilated themselves. As it turns out, they almost never do. So why is society supporting their efforts? You guessed it. All for their 'mental health.'
We can readily understand good health when it comes to the body. 'Optimal health' means that there is nothing wrong with our body - we are in 'good shape' and can breathe, act, digest food, etc. without difficulty. But is there such a thing as optimal mental health? Brave New World
If Bernard lives in California, its newly-passed law will assure that his employer will have to put up with him or face a $150,000 fine. If 'she' moves to Minnesota, New Mexico, or Rhode Island, he will also be protected by equal rights laws. If 'Bernice' decides she is a lesbian, or even decides to "go straight" by having sex with a man, 'she' will have even more rights than the wife. And it is always possible that Bernice will decide to get a domestic partner - in which case 'she' will have all the benefits of marriage without his unsympathetic, narrow-minded wife!
In order to optimize his 'mental health,' everybody has to please Bernard. No sacrifice is too great for this 'victim' of his ever-growing desires. Bernard doesn't know exactly what he wants - probably never will. But in the mental health world, what he - the client - wants trumps the interests of his wife, kids, neighbors and relatives. The rest of society simply 'has to adjust' - and pay his bills.
So said the three highly trained therapists. So says Ann Landers.
This is what mental healthism has led to - the client is the most important person in the world. The mad and the dregs of society are elevated to the heights and the productive and their children have to be 're-educated to accept this reality.' And if they won't accept their re-education, they may have to be fined or imprisoned for their 'hate crime.' The Scoop on Transsexuals
What is particularly disturbing about this trend is that there is no objective reason for giving someone a 'sex-change.' Unlike removing a breast due to cancer, there is no medical indication for turning a he into a 'she,' or vice-versa. Typically, the only criterion is the desire of the patient. Some of the therapists are quite open about this:3 "In our opinion an evaluation of SRS [sexual reassignment surgery] can be made only on the basis of subjective data, because SRS is intended to solve a problem that cannot be determined objectively."
The children, the extended family - everybody else is irrelevant. The real question, they say, is 'what does Bernard need for his mental health?' And if Bernard is pleased, all the sacrifice was worth it.The Specter of Mental Healthism
A specter is haunting America - it is 'mental healthism.' As Marxism haunts economic policy, so mental healthism haunts social policy. Both of these movements claim special knowledge of 'what's wrong' and the ability to remedy what ails us. As in the last century when Marxism corrupted many a society, today many advocates of mental healthism are busily about their dismantling of traditional society. At this point in history, mental healthism is actually more dangerous than Marxism. Marxism already got its chance to perform and didn't work. Mental healthism is still growing in influence and has yet to be fully exposed as, at best, quasi-scientific.
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It's always been with us, particularly with men sent to war. American Revolution hero George Rogers Clark undoubtedly suffered from it as did Audie Murphy (in his own words).
It doesn't affect some people. Still, when I was but a child our car slid down an icy hill into the path of a speeding freight train. We were hit and dragged down the track. I relive the entire event in my mind every time I navigate a rail crossing. Fortunately it doesn't affect me although sometimes I stop at an unguarded crossing, get out of my car, check the track in both directions thoroughly, and only then proceed on my way. So far I haven't been hit again.
It's always been with us, particularly with men sent to war. American Revolution hero George Rogers Clark undoubtedly suffered from it as did Audie Murphy (in his own words).
It doesn't affect some people. Still, when I was but a child our car slid down an icy hill into the path of a speeding freight train. We were hit and dragged down the track. I relive the entire event in my mind every time I navigate a rail crossing. Fortunately it doesn't affect me although sometimes I stop at an unguarded crossing, get out of my car, check the track in both directions thoroughly, and only then proceed on my way. So far I haven't been hit again.
LOL! "Tell me I'm not pregnant, doc!"
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